“There are no shipping methods available for the address you entered.” Few errors are more conversion-killing than this. The good news: it’s almost always one of eight specific causes. Run through them in order.
1. The shipping zone doesn’t cover the address
The most common cause. Settings → Shipping and delivery → click your shipping profile → check the zones.
If a customer is in Maine and your “United States” zone only includes the lower 48, Maine isn’t covered. Same for Canadian provinces, Australian states, etc.
Fix: add the country/state to the shipping zone, or create a new zone with rates.
2. The product belongs to a profile with no rates
If you have multiple shipping profiles (one for general products, one for fragile items, one for digital), each profile needs its own zones and rates. A product assigned to a profile with no zone for the customer’s country = no rates.
Fix: either add the customer’s country to that profile’s zones, or move the product to a profile that does.
3. Cart total is below the minimum or above the maximum
Rate conditions (“Free shipping over $50”) can have weight or price minimums. If a customer’s cart falls outside every rate’s range, they see no methods.
Fix: make sure you have a “no condition” rate, even an expensive one — there should always be at least one method available at any cart total.
4. A product weighs zero
If your shipping uses weight-based rates and a product has weight = 0, the cart’s total weight may not satisfy your minimum-weight rate.
Fix: ensure every product has a non-zero weight (or change rates to be price-based, not weight-based).
5. Carrier-calculated shipping is failing
If you use real-time carrier rates (UPS, USPS, DHL via Shopify Shipping or a third-party app), and the carrier API call fails, Shopify silently shows “no rates.”
Fix: check the app’s status. Reauth the carrier integration. Test with a different address. If the carrier itself is down (it happens), add a static fallback rate to ensure customers always see something.
6. A shipping function is hiding all rates
If you’ve installed a Delivery Customization Function that hides rates conditionally (e.g. “hide overnight for non-US”), and your logic accidentally hides everything, this happens.
Fix: open Settings → Shipping and delivery → Customizations. Disable the Function temporarily. Test. Then re-enable and find the bug in the Function’s logic.
7. The product is a digital good, but isn’t marked as one
Digital products shouldn’t need shipping. But if you forgot to uncheck “This is a physical product,” Shopify expects shipping rates.
Fix: edit the product → uncheck “This is a physical product” for digital goods.
8. The cart contains an unfulfillable item
Some items might be out of stock, set to “deny purchase when out of stock,” and somehow still in the cart (usually from a bug or stale cart). Shopify can refuse to compute shipping.
Fix: clear the cart. Re-add the item. If it then refuses to add, the inventory issue is upstream.
How to diagnose fast
- Open the cart in question (or recreate it with the same items).
- Try checkout with three test addresses — one US, one Canada, one outside North America.
- Whichever fails, you know it’s the zone for that country.
- If all fail, it’s the rate conditions or the carrier API.
- If only one product breaks it, it’s that product’s profile.
Five minutes of structured testing beats two hours of staring.
A defensive setup we recommend
Always have:
- A “Standard” rate with no condition (catches everything)
- An “Express” rate with a higher floor
- A “Free shipping over $X” rate
- One zone per major region (US, Canada, EU, UK, Rest of World)
This four-rate × four-zone setup covers 95% of stores and gives you a fallback when carrier integrations fail.