Enhanced Avalara for Shopify integration gives merchants greater control over tax compliance

Existing users of Avalara AvaTax for Shopify Plus are encouraged to upgrade to Avalara for Shopify through a limited-time special offer before April 30, 2025, the Shopify deprecation date. To ensure a smooth transition and avoid disruption to your business, follow our step-by-step migration guide and watch the on-demand webinar for answers to commonly asked questions. Our team is also available to answer questions and help you plan your upgrade, just reach out here.

“We know how important it is for businesses to maintain continuity and avoid risk, particularly in today’s dynamic environment,” said Meg Higgins, SVP, Global Partners at Avalara. “Avalara is working closely with Shopify merchants using our legacy integration to help ensure a smooth migration to Avalara for Shopify, their best option for comprehensive tax compliance.”

If you haven’t used Avalara with your Shopify store before, please reach out to our team here.

The Avalara for Shopify integration includes enhanced features not available in the legacy Shopify Plus integration, with ongoing updates planned to introduce even more functionality for Shopify merchants. Current features include the following:

• Partial refunds:- Supports partial refunds and exchange functionality for individual items with an order 
• Global tax calculation: Supports value-added tax (VAT) calculation, including B2B VAT
• Exemption certificate management: Request, view, and manage exemption certificates from your Shopify admin (requires Avalara Exemption Certificate Management subscription)
• Item/Product sync: Enables one-way sync of essential product catalog information from Shopify to Avalara
• Tax code management: Manage Avalara tax codes at the product and the product variant level within Shopify

The new Avalara for Shopify integration makes it easier to automate end-to-end tax compliance for more Shopify merchants, regardless of their Shopify plan.

Omnichannel commerce, global sales, and changing regulations can make tax compliance more difficult for ecommerce businesses. The practice of selling locally in just one neighborhood, city, or state is long gone; retailers have the technology and tools to build and launch a website and reach customers all over the world.

As technology advancements enable rapid growth, government regulations and compliance requirements can complicate business operations. Ecommerce businesses must be adequately prepared to handle expanding tax compliance requirements as they enter new markets, sell through new channels, or offer a new type of product.

Thus, a partnership between Avalara and Shopify was born. We’ve been helping ease the burden of tax compliance for Shopify merchants for 10 years now.

Tax compliance automation software and the powerful ecommerce engine behind Shopify have been helping customers like Thread Wallets, ICONIC London, and MiiR manage tax compliance while their business grows.

Shopify launched their Shopify Tax Platform in 2023 to provide their merchants a choice when selecting a tax compliance solution. Their growing list of partners, including Avalara, allows customers to choose a solution they know and trust and lets customers manage sales tax compliance from a single platform. 

Shopify Tax streamlines U.S. sales tax compliance, saving businesses time and money and providing merchants address-based rate calculations, nexus tracking, and detailed reports, all integrated directly into Shopify. While Shopify Tax is suitable for many merchants, as a business expands, they may choose to upgrade to the partner-led Shopify Tax Platform, which allows businesses to work directly with Avalara. 

Through the expanded partnership with Avalara, Shopify merchants of any size can more easily manage and automate global tax compliance. Avalara can help all Shopify customers with their global tax compliance requirements for sales tax, VAT, exemption certificates, 1099 and W-9s, property tax, and more.

Millions of merchants choose Shopify to build their business, and we expect millions more to follow suit. As the ecommerce industry continues to grow and evolve, compliance rules and regulations will likely evolve too. We can expect these changes to impact a number of industries.

• Retail: Product tax rate changes, retail delivery fees, sales tax holidays, and a new threshold for the 1099-K are all shaping retail sales tax. 
• Manufacturing: Drop shipping, microfactories, reshoring, and servitization are just some of the trends and issues affecting sales tax for manufacturers. 
• Beverage alcohol: The growth of low-alcohol, no-alcohol, and ready-to-drink beverages is shaking tax policies in many states.
• U.S. sales tax: Find out what’s new with tax laws, economic nexus, marketplace facilitator laws, and tax rates, plus discover how technology is helping businesses with sales tax compliance.
• Global tax: Ecommerce may transcend borders, but cross-border selling doesn’t translate to a free pass on tax compliance. Get the lowdown on bringing VAT into the digital age, e-invoicing, and other international tax changes.