Help · Validation rules
Blocked states and provinces
List the US states or Canadian provinces you don't ship to, and checkout stops those orders at the address form. This is also the only way to block US territories like Puerto Rico and Guam.
What this rule does
Shopify treats Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands as states of the US, not as their own countries. So they never show up in the country list, and the Blocked countries rule can't reach them. If a carrier surcharge or a shipping limit means you can't serve a state, province, or territory, list it here and the order stops before it becomes a refund.
When to use it
- Puerto Rico, Guam, and other US territories your carrier treats as off-contract
- States or provinces a remote-area surcharge makes unprofitable to serve
States and provinces are listed per country, so blocking a Canadian province never touches a US order. A listed entry always hard-blocks; there is no warn level for lists.
Covers the US and Canada for now. Military addresses (APO, FPO, DPO) have their own rule.
What your buyer sees
Blocklists always act at checkout. Your buyer sees the message right at the address field, before payment, and checkout continues only with an address you can serve. Our default message:
You can replace it with your own wording in the rule's settings.
If a check can't run for any reason, the order goes through untouched. We never hold up a sale on our own uptime.
Set it up
Open Address Verifier in your Shopify admin, go to Settings, and pick Blocked states and provinces. Add your entries (one per line), write your own checkout message if you want one, and save. Changes are live on your next checkout. No deploy, no theme edit.
New installs start with an empty list. Add an entry and it blocks on your next checkout.
Questions this page didn't answer? Email [email protected] and a human replies.