Shipping rates not showing at checkout › Shipping prices by country (2026)

Original data

Shopify shipping prices by country (2026): 241 stores

Last updated 27 October 2026. Data collected 20 to 22 October 2026.

In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, we put one in-stock product in a cart, as an anonymous buyer, and read the delivery options and prices checkout offered in up to eight countries per store. A buyer in the United States saw a median cheapest delivery price of 7.25 USD (n = 110 carts priced in USD). Stores based abroad charged more: 16.50 USD to a US address (n = 30), against 5.99 USD from US-based stores (n = 80). A free option showed up in 26.8% of home-country carts (52/194) but 11.7% of carts abroad (81/690).

This page uses the same tests as our Shopify checkout shipping study (2026), which counts the countries where checkout offered no delivery option at all. Here we look at the carts that did get options: what they cost, how often one was free, and how many there were. No new request was made for this page.

Key findings

• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, the cheapest delivery option for a one-item cart to the United States had a median price of 7.25 USD (n = 110 carts priced in USD).
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, US-based stores charged a median of 5.99 USD for their cheapest option to a US address (n = 80), against 16.50 USD from stores based outside the US (n = 30).
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, the cheapest option to a eurozone address had a median of 4.80 EUR when the store was based in that country (n = 62), against 8.00 EUR from a store based in another country (n = 389).
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, the cheapest option to a UK address had a median of 3.99 GBP from UK-based stores (n = 28), against 9.95 GBP from stores based elsewhere (n = 38).
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, 52 of 194 stores (26.8%) offered a free delivery option for a one-item cart in their home country, against 81 of 690 carts (11.7%) in other countries.
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, 129 of 877 carts with fixed delivery rates (14.7%) included a free option.
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, 635 of 877 carts with fixed delivery rates (72.4%) offered exactly one delivery option; the median was 1.
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, carts served by live carrier rates offered a median of 2 options (n = 123 live reads).

Shopify shipping cost statistics by country

For each cart we kept the cheapest delivery option checkout offered, counting a free option as 0. Prices are compared only within one currency: for each country we kept the carts priced in that country's currency (US dollars for the United States, euros in the eurozone, and so on), plus carts where every option was free. Carts priced in another currency, for example a store that charges Australian buyers in US dollars, are left out of that row and counted in the last column. We used no exchange rate. Only countries with at least 10 such carts are shown.

“Middle half of carts” is the interquartile range: a quarter of carts paid less, a quarter paid more. 3 other destinations had fewer than 10 carts and are not shown. Prices are as the cart returned them, for one unit of one product, with no discount code.

• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, Germany had the lowest median cheapest delivery price among eurozone destinations shown, 5.50 EUR (n = 99 carts).
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, the median cheapest delivery price was 18.00 CAD to Canada (n = 48 carts) and 20.00 AUD to Australia (n = 43 carts).
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, 26 of the 69 carts to Australia with fixed rates and 26 of the 74 to Canada were priced in another currency than the local one, so they are not in those rows.
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, when the cheapest option to the United States was not free, its median price was 9.90 USD (n = 80 carts).

How much do Shopify stores charge for international shipping?

To compare home and international shipping without converting currencies, we compared carts going to the same destination, priced in the same currency, split by where the store is based (the country set in its Shopify payment settings). “At home” means the store ships to its own country; “from abroad” means a store based in another country, including another eurozone country for the euro row.

Australia is left out: only 6 carts came from Australian stores, below our threshold of 10. Cells with fewer than 10 carts are not shown.

• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, shipping to a US address from a store based outside the US had a median cheapest price of 16.50 USD (n = 30), 2.8 times the 5.99 USD median from US-based stores (n = 80).
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, cross-border shipping to a eurozone address had a median cheapest price of 8.00 EUR (n = 389), against 4.80 EUR at home (n = 62).
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, the most expensive quarter of carts shipped to the US from abroad paid 34.75 USD or more for the cheapest option (n = 30).
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, home-country delivery to the UK was tightly grouped: the middle half of UK-based carts paid between 3.33 and 4.95 GBP (n = 28).

How often do Shopify stores offer free shipping?

Our cart held one unit of one product. So “free option offered” means exactly this: for that one-item cart, checkout listed at least one delivery option at 0. It does not tell you whether the store has a free-shipping threshold, or what it is: a store with free shipping over 100 USD shows a paid option for a 40 USD product, and a store that offers free shipping on everything shows a free one. We do not report thresholds, because this test cannot see them.

The home-country row uses the same definition as the study page: stores whose home country was tested and got delivery options, including the home countries we tested only for this question. The other rows count the up to eight standard countries per store.

• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, 52 of 194 stores (26.8%) offered a free delivery option for a one-item cart in their home country.
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, 81 of 690 one-item carts sent to a country other than the store's home country (11.7%) included a free delivery option.
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, 58 of 198 stores with fixed rates in at least one tested country (29.3%) offered a free option in at least one of them.
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, 11 of 124 stores with fixed rates in at least two tested countries (8.9%) offered a free option in every one of them.
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, 19 of 123 carts served by live carrier rates (15.4%) included a free option.

If your free shipping does not show up when you expect it, our guide to free shipping not showing at checkout covers the usual causes, including the gap below a threshold that leaves small carts with no option.

How many shipping options do Shopify stores offer?

• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, carts with fixed delivery rates offered a median of 1 option (n = 877), and only 14 of 877 (1.6%) offered 4 or more.
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, carts served by live carrier rates offered a median of 2 options (n = 123), and 16 of 123 (13.0%) offered 4 or more.

Fixed rates vs live carrier rates

Fixed rates (flat, weight-based or price-based) come back with the cart. Live rates come from a carrier account or a shipping app. In our first pass we read only fixed rates; in the second, we read live rates for at most 2 countries per store that had no fixed rate, the store's home country first. Of those 199 live reads, 123 returned options. That selection is not random, so these live-rate prices describe the countries we picked, and are not a fair comparison with the fixed-rate table above.

Same currency rule as above: 2 live-rate carts to the US, 11 to Canada and 6 to the UK were priced in another currency and left out. 4 other destinations had fewer than 10 live-rate carts and are not shown.

• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, carts to the United States served by live carrier rates had a median cheapest price of 8.45 USD (n = 38).
• In our 2026 test of 241 Shopify stores, carts to Canada served by live carrier rates had a median cheapest price of 17.00 CAD (n = 36).

Method

• Sample: 241 reachable Shopify stores with an in-stock, shippable product, out of 308 attempted, taken from 17 public lists of example Shopify stores. The study page lists the sources and why 67 stores were excluded.
• One test: an anonymous buyer, no account, no discount code; one unit of one product per store, the first in-stock variant that requires shipping among the first products of the store's public catalogue; a cart created through Shopify's Storefront API.
• Countries: up to 8 per store among the countries it ships to, in a fixed priority order (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland, Austria and so on), with one large-city address per country. The home country was added when it was not among them, for the free-shipping question only.
• Carts counted: the 877 country tests where the cart got at least one fixed delivery option, the same base as the study page. For live rates, the 123 live reads that returned options.
• Prices: the cheapest option of each cart, a free option counting as 0, compared only within one currency. Medians and quartiles are computed over carts, not stores. Any cell with fewer than 10 carts is left out.
• Home country: the country in each store's Shopify payment settings, as returned by the Storefront API.

Limits

• One product per store, often a store's first or default product. Its price and weight drive both the shipping price and whether a threshold is reached, so another product could show another price.
• One address per country, in a large city. Remote regions, islands and other postcodes may cost more or have no option.
• Well-known stores. The sample comes from lists of example stores, likely better maintained than average. It is not a random sample of Shopify stores.
• Thresholds are invisible. A one-item cart shows whether delivery was free for that cart, not the store's free-shipping policy.
• Currencies are not converted. Carts in another currency than the destination's are left out of price figures, which drops 26 of 69 Australian and 26 of 74 Canadian carts.
• Live rates are a selection. They were read for at most 2 countries per store, home country first.
• A snapshot. Prices as checkout returned them between 20 and 22 October 2026; stores change their rates.

What our store check covers, honestly

The free store check runs the same kind of test on your own store: one unit of one product, as an anonymous buyer, one large-city address per country, for up to eight of the countries you ship to. It lists the delivery options each country gets, with their prices, live carrier rates included when a country has no fixed rate, and flags any country with no option at all.

It does not compare your prices with other stores or tell you what a good price is, and it does not build a cart big enough to reach your free-shipping threshold. If a price looks wrong, our guide to shipping rates wrong or too high at checkout lists the usual causes, and how to test checkout from another country shows how to check by hand.

How to cite this page

Data

Only aggregate figures are published. Store-level data is not shared, so that no store is named.

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Related

• Shopify checkout shipping study (2026) The same 241 stores: how many lose a country at checkout.
• Shopify shipping and checkout statistics (2026) Cart abandonment, shipping costs and carrier limits, each figure with its source.
• Free shipping not showing at checkout Mixed profiles, discounts, and the gap below your threshold.
• Shipping rates wrong or too high at checkout Combined profiles, weight tiers, default package size and currency.
• Carrier-calculated shipping not showing Timeouts, rejected parcels and backup rates.