Executive summary
- What: Shopify Balance can now send money internationally. Eligible US businesses can pay suppliers and contractors abroad, and recipients receive their local currency.
- Why: Supplier payouts sit beside the revenue funding them, and the exchange rate plus both fees are visible before you confirm, unlike a traditional bank wire.
- Who: US merchants on Balance with overseas factories or agencies, specifically finance leads who currently originate wires in a separate bank portal.
What changed
You add an international recipient once, choosing individual or business, selecting the destination country, then entering the legal name as registered with their bank plus the fields that country requires. Transfers can then be sent from any Balance account, with estimated delivery of one to three business days.
Three constraints matter. Initiation is mobile only: the Balance app is the only place to send, and the admin is read only here. Pricing has two parts, both charged in your sending currency and billed separately from the transfer, so neither reduces what the recipient gets: a fixed fee per transfer, and an exchange fee as a percentage of the amount sent, varying by country. International transfers also draw on the same daily limit as domestic ones, so a large supplier run can exhaust it. The app shows the send amount, receive amount and rate before you confirm. Recipient statements read ShopifyInternational, which cannot be changed.
Why it matters
The practical gain is cycle time and reconciliation, not headline FX savings. Payables teams paying a Portuguese factory or a European 3PL usually keep a second banking relationship open purely to originate wires, then hand match those debits against Shopify payouts at close. Keeping the debit inside Balance puts payment and revenue in one history.
Temper expectations on scope. This is US only, Balance only and mobile only, sharing a daily limit with domestic transfers, so it fits recurring mid sized supplier payments and agency retainers rather than large inventory settlements. Compare the fixed fee plus exchange percentage against your current provider per corridor before moving volume. To model that against your existing payment rails, talk to the team at Makro.
Role-specific impact
- Marketers: No direct storefront impact. The indirect benefit is faster settlement for overseas agencies and production partners, which keeps vendors unblocked during peak planning.
- Developers: Nothing to build, and nothing to plan around. There is no public API and no webhook for international transfers, so do not scope an automated payables integration on this. Transfers stay a manual action in the mobile app.
- Store admins: Visibility is read only. You can audit a transfer and its separate fee transaction in admin history, but cannot originate or cancel one. Senders need the mobile app on their own device.
Use-case example
Real-world scenario
A US apparel brand on Plus pays three overseas partners monthly: a knitwear factory in Portugal, a sampling studio in Italy and a photographer in Mexico. Each was a wire raised in the bank portal, roughly fifteen minutes of entry and approval, plus about two hours of matching per close. Saved Balance recipients cut origination to a few taps and remove the matching step, recovering close to two hours a month. Fees also become explicit at approval rather than discovered on a statement later.
Implementation checklist
- Confirm eligibility: the business must be US based, and the option to add an international recipient must appear in the app. If absent, the account is not enabled yet.
- Install the Balance app on the devices of people who will send, and verify their account access.
- Check each supplier's destination country is supported, and record its fixed transfer fee and exchange fee percentage.
- Benchmark those fees against your current wire provider per corridor, then decide which suppliers are worth migrating.
- Add recipients early, using the legal name exactly as registered with their bank to avoid returned transfers.
- Review your daily limit in Settings, and sequence large supplier runs across days where it would bind.
- Update month end close to pull international transfers and their separate fee transactions from Balance history, and warn suppliers their statement will read ShopifyInternational.
FAQ
Q: Can we trigger these payments from the admin or through an API?
A: No. Initiation is limited to the Balance mobile app. The admin shows completed transfers for audit only, and there is no public API or webhook, so this cannot be wired into ERP payables today.
Q: Do the fees reduce what the supplier receives?
A: No. Both the fixed transfer fee and the percentage exchange fee are charged in your sending currency and billed separately, so the recipient gets the full quoted amount in local currency. If a transfer fails or is returned, the fee is reversed.
Resources
Sending money internationally with Shopify Balance
Need guidance? Talk to Makro.