Shipping Zone

A Shipping Zone is a named, geographic rule that controls which shipping method instances (e.g., Flat Rate, Free Shipping, Local Pickup, carrier plugins) are available to a customer based on their shipping address. Each zone acts as a container for method instances with their own prices and settings, so you can charge different rates or offer different carriers for different destinations.

Zones can target broad areas—continents, countries—or be narrowed to states/provinces and even ZIP/postcodes using ranges and wildcards. At cart/checkout, WooCommerce evaluates zones in priority order (top to bottom) and uses the first matching zone; its attached methods are the only ones shown to the customer. If nothing matches, the special Rest of the world zone is used as a fallback.

Think of zones as eligibility filters: they decide where methods are offered, while method settings (and shipping classes inside those methods) decide how much to charge. Advanced setups that split items into multiple shipping packages (multi-origin or vendor plugins) resolve a zone per package, so different parts of one order can ship under different zones.

How matching works

  • WooCommerce checks zones from top to bottom; the first match is used.
  • Reorder zones by drag-and-drop to control priority.

Defining zone regions

  • Regions can be Continents, Countries, or States/Provinces.
  • Optionally restrict by ZIP/postcodes (one per line). Supported patterns include single codes, numeric ranges, and prefix wildcards (e.g., 90210, 90210…90299, CB23*).

Fallback: “Rest of the world”

If no custom zone matches, WooCommerce uses Rest of the world. You can attach methods to it; it can’t be moved, renamed, or deleted. If it has no methods, customers may see “No shipping options.”

Methods per zone

Attach one or more methods (Flat Rate, Free Shipping, Local Pickup, carrier plugins). The first enabled method in a zone is the default selection; you can sort methods within the zone.

Examples

  • Local metro: Country = ES; Postcodes = 46*** for Valencia metro.
  • State-only: Region = US → CA; offer Local Pickup + courier.
  • International: Dedicated zones for key countries; all others handled by Rest of the world.

Pitfalls & tips

  • Overlapping zones in the wrong order → wrong rates shown. Keep specific → broad.
  • Forgetting a fallback method in Rest of the world can block checkouts for unmatched addresses.
  • Keep postcode lists concise; prefer ranges/wildcards over thousands of entries.
  • If using package splits, test with mixed carts—each package may resolve to a different zone.