How to Set Up a Shopify Store for the GCC: Step-by-Step

A Shopify store built for the US won't convert in Riyadh or Dubai. Gulf shoppers expect Arabic, local prices with VAT included, mada or Apple Pay, and cash on delivery as a backup.

The good news? Every one of those is a setting or an app. Nothing needs custom code.

Get them right and you're selling to some of the world's richest, most mobile-first shoppers. The number of live Shopify stores in Saudi Arabia alone grew 5% in a year.

Here's the order to set it all up, with the Shopify setting for each step.

Before you start: which setup fits your company?

Where your company is registered decides how you get paid. Everything else in this guide is the same across the Gulf.

Shopify Payments, Shopify's built-in checkout, works in only one GCC country: the UAE. Everyone else connects a local payment gateway.

Your company	How you take cards	What shoppers are charged in	Go deeper
UAE (mainland or free zone)	Shopify Payments, plus Tabby, Tamara and COD	AED, or SAR and other currencies through Markets (2% conversion fee)	Shopify in the UAE
Saudi Arabia	A Saudi gateway with mada and Apple Pay, plus BNPL and COD	Your store currency: set SAR	Shopify in Saudi Arabia
Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain or Oman	A regional gateway that supports KNET, QPay, Benefit or OmanNet	Your store currency	Notes below
Outside the GCC	Shopify Payments from your home country, or a global gateway	Local currency only with Shopify Payments	Notes below

So a UAE company gets the easiest start. A Saudi company pays a small extra Shopify fee on gateway orders, from 2% on Basic down to 0.2% on Plus.

Register your Shopify account under the company that will hold the bank account. Regional pricing follows it: Saudi stores pay $19 a month for Basic on annual billing, UAE stores $24.

How to set up Shopify for the GCC, step by step

1

Set currency and VAT-inclusive prices

SAR for a Saudi store, AED for a UAE store, with taxes included in every price.

2

Add Arabic and an RTL theme

Pick a right-to-left theme, add Arabic and translate the checkout yourself.

3

Turn on payments

Shopify Payments in the UAE, a local gateway elsewhere, then Tabby or Tamara.

4

Add cash on delivery with OTP

A manual payment method plus a COD form app that verifies phone numbers.

5

Build shipping zones and connect couriers

Zones per country, flat rates or live rates, and an aggregator for labels.

6

Collect the Saudi National Address

Couriers can refuse Saudi parcels without one since January 2026.

7

Publish legal pages and store details

CR or licence number, VAT number, policies and, in Saudi Arabia, your e-store authentication.

8

Install a ZATCA e-invoicing app

Saudi VAT-registered stores only. Do it before the first live order.

9

Connect your domain, Markets and analytics

Arabic subfolders, hreflang, GA4 and the Snap, TikTok and Meta pixels.

10

Place test orders

Every market, language and payment method, plus one refund.

1. Store settings: currency, VAT and taxes

Gulf shoppers expect the price on the product page to be the price they pay. In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, that's also the rule.

Do this before you add products, so you only enter prices once:

• Store currency. In Settings > General, set SAR for a Saudi store or AED for a UAE store. Without Shopify Payments, every buyer is charged in this currency.
• Tax-inclusive prices. In Settings > Taxes and duties, turn on the option to include tax in prices. Saudi VAT is 15% and UAE VAT is 5%.
• Your VAT number. Once you're registered, add it for that country in the same tax settings so it prints on invoices.
• Clean price points. A converted price like SAR 74.96 looks odd. Round to SAR 75 or SAR 79.

When do you need to register? Both countries make VAT registration mandatory above 375,000 a year in local currency, and voluntary from 187,500. Our Saudi VAT guide covers the details.

2. Arabic and right-to-left

Arabic reads right to left, so your menus, galleries and cart must mirror. That starts with the theme.

The Theme Store tags 24 paid themes as right-to-left, priced $150–420 one-off. Shopify says its free Horizon-family themes support RTL too.

Then three settings:

• Add Arabic in Settings > Languages. The free Translate & Adapt app machine-translates up to two languages.
• Translate the checkout and notifications. Arabic isn't one of Shopify's 33 pre-translated checkout languages, so this is manual.
• Get a native speaker to edit titles, navigation and policy pages.

Fonts, Western digits, mirrored icons and Gulf-friendly copy are all in our Arabic Shopify store guide.

3. Payments: cards, mada and BNPL

Payments are where Gulf setups differ most. Pick your path from the table above, then apply early, because approvals take days.

UAE companies activate Shopify Payments in Settings > Payments, with their trade licence, owner ID and an AED IBAN. Apple Pay, Google Pay and Shop Pay then switch on automatically. The full document list is in our Shopify UAE guide.

Saudi companies sign up with a Saudi gateway that has a Shopify app, such as Tap, Amazon Payment Services, HyperPay or Geidea. Then add it in Settings > Payments. Gateways ask for your CR, a Saudi business IBAN and a live site with a refund policy.

Switch on mada, the national debit network, and Apple Pay. Apple Pay inside Shopify's checkout depends on the gateway, so confirm it before you sign. Our mada on Shopify guide shows which gateways support what.

Next, add buy now, pay later (BNPL), which splits a purchase into interest-free instalments:

• Tabby. Install the app with live API keys, create its webhooks and turn test mode off. Tabby needs the shipping phone number.
• Tamara. Sign up as a partner, then install Tamara Split Payments.
• MISpay. A Saudi option with a free Shopify app since February 2026.

Add each provider's widget to product and cart pages, so shoppers see the instalment price before checkout.

4. Cash on delivery with OTP

COD is shrinking across the Gulf, but new brands still need it. Shoppers who don't know you yet often want to see the parcel first.

Sellers launching new Saudi brands report COD at 40–60% of their first orders. In the card-first UAE, plan on 15–30%.

Turning it on takes a minute: Settings > Payments > Manual payment methods > Cash on Delivery. Shopify charges no transaction fee on it.

The real work is cutting refused deliveries. Install a COD form app with OTP, a one-time code sent by SMS or WhatsApp that proves the phone number is real. Releasit COD Form is free up to 60 orders a month.

Our comparison of Shopify COD and OTP apps covers the alternatives.

5. Shipping zones, couriers and the National Address

Shipping in the Gulf is fast and cheap if you set it up right. A Riyadh to Jeddah parcel costs about SAR 14–22 through an aggregator.

Start in Settings > Shipping and delivery:

• Create a zone per country. Saudi Arabia, UAE and a Rest of GCC zone is a common start.
• Pick flat or live rates. Live courier rates at checkout need carrier-calculated shipping, which comes with Advanced and Plus, and with Grow on annual billing. Basic can't show them.
• Add a free-shipping threshold, such as SAR 200 or AED 150. It keeps checkout simple and lifts order values.
• Make the phone number required at checkout. Gulf couriers call or WhatsApp customers before delivery.

For labels and tracking, most sellers skip the poorly rated official Aramex and SMSA apps. Aggregators such as OTO, Shipox and Locad connect several couriers in one dashboard, with COD tracking built in.

Collect the Saudi National Address

Since 1 January 2026, Saudi couriers can reject, hold or return parcels without a valid National Address. It's the Kingdom's official address system.

Every address has a Short Address: an 8-character code of four letters and four digits, like ABCD1234. Shoppers find theirs in the SPL, Absher or Tawakkalna apps.

Ask for it in your COD form, or rename the second address line in your checkout translations to ask for it. Then check it again in your WhatsApp confirmation. Our Saudi courier guide compares carriers.

6. Legal pages and store details

Gulf consumer laws spell out what your store must show. Getting it right also builds trust.

Saudi stores have two more steps. Add your online store to your CR within 30 days of launch. Then authenticate it on the Saudi Business Center's Business Platform, which replaced Maroof in 2023, and show the certificate in your footer.

Saudi Arabia's data protection law (PDPL) also asks for consent before marketing messages and non-essential tracking. Add a cookie banner and a separate opt-in box for email and SMS.

Publish every policy in Arabic and English. The full rules are in our Saudi e-commerce law guide.

7. ZATCA e-invoicing for Saudi stores

ZATCA, the Saudi tax authority, requires VAT-registered businesses to issue e-invoices from approved software. Shopify doesn't do this on its own, so you add an app.

Popular options are Marmin, Sufio and a Qoyod connector, at about SAR 100–300 a month. Each B2C invoice carries a QR code and is reported to ZATCA within 24 hours.

The deadline is close for many stores. Wave 25 covers businesses with VAT-subject revenue above SAR 187,500. They must be fully integrated by 1 February 2027.

Install the app before your first VAT-registered sale. Our ZATCA e-invoicing guide explains the phases.

8. Domain, Markets and analytics

A custom domain unlocks Shopify's international URLs. Connect it in Settings > Domains before you set up Markets.

Then in Settings > Markets:

• Create markets such as Saudi Arabia, UAE and Rest of GCC.
• Use subfolders like /ar-sa, /en-sa, /ar-ae and /en-ae. They keep all your SEO on one domain, and Shopify adds hreflang tags for you.
• Set the default language per market. Arabic for Saudi Arabia is the usual choice; English or Arabic both work in the UAE.
• Submit each sitemap in Google Search Console.

You don't need separate .sa or .ae domains. They cost extra and each one builds SEO from scratch. Setup screens are in our Shopify Markets guide.

For analytics, install GA4 with consent mode, plus the Snap, TikTok and Meta pixels with their server-side connections. Snapchat and TikTok drive a lot of Gulf sales, yet their traffic often shows up as "direct" in GA4. Tag every ad and influencer link with UTMs.

9. Test orders before launch

Test every path a customer can take, in both languages. It's the step that catches untranslated checkout text and broken BNPL webhooks.

For each market, place one order with:

• A card, mada and Apple Pay, through Shopify Payments or your gateway
• Tabby and Tamara. Tamara has no test mode, so use a real low-value order
• Cash on delivery, including the OTP step

Then refund one order in full and one in part. Check the refunds reach your gateway and BNPL dashboards, and the Arabic notification emails read correctly.

Worked example: a Saudi brand selling to Saudi Arabia and the UAE

Take a Jeddah fashion brand with a Saudi CR. It wants Arabic-first stores for Saudi Arabia and an English option for UAE shoppers.

What about UAE shoppers? They pay in SAR, because the brand has no UAE entity. That works for a start. Once UAE sales grow, a UAE licence unlocks Shopify Payments and AED pricing.

Your Shopify GCC launch checklist

Notes for UAE companies selling to Saudi Arabia

• Price in SAR through Markets. Shopify Payments converts for a 2% fee, but it can't take domestic mada, so expect some Saudi debit declines.
• Plan a Saudi store as volume grows. It runs on a local gateway with mada, the setup described above for Saudi companies.

Notes for Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman

• The setup looks like Saudi Arabia's: a regional gateway plus Shopify's extra fee.
• Ask for local debit cards by name. KNET, QPay, Benefit and OmanNet aren't on by default. Checkout.com, Tap and PayTabs offer some or all of them.
• KNET matters most. Payment providers put its share of Kuwait's online payments at 75–80%.

Notes for foreign and Chinese brands

• Saudi consumer law still applies when you ship to Saudi shoppers from abroad, including the disclosures and 7-day cancellation right.
• Domestic mada needs a Saudi entity. A foreign store takes Saudi cards as Visa and Mastercard.
• Use DDP shipping so shoppers pay nothing extra at the door. Our Saudi Shopify guide compares the routes into the market, and the Shopify hub covers plans and apps.