COD for orders between GCC countries: currency and duties

Before you offer cash on delivery to another GCC country, check three things: which currency the order is in and what your courier will collect, who pays duties and import VAT when the parcel crosses the border, and what a refused parcel costs to bring back. If the shopper could be asked at the door for more than they saw at checkout, turn COD off for that country, or pay the border charges yourself and include them in your price.

What changes when a COD order crosses a GCC border?

Selling from Dubai to Riyadh is not the same as selling from Dubai to Sharjah, even though both are in the Gulf:

• The currency can change. The shopper may see and pay in their own currency, while your courier may pay you in yours.
• The parcel goes through customs. The GCC has a customs union, but that doesn't mean a parcel crosses with nothing to pay.
• A refusal costs more. The parcel has to travel back across the border, and the return can bring its own charges.

Which currency does the shopper see, and which does the courier collect?

This depends on how your store is set up in Shopify Markets:

• Shopify says selling in local currencies is only supported with Shopify Payments or Adyen. Orders placed through other third-party payment providers are processed in your store's default currency.
• Since July 8, 2025, for stores that use Shopify Markets, manual payment methods such as cash on delivery are shown at checkout and recorded in the currency configured in Markets.

So a shopper in Kuwait may place a COD order in Kuwaiti dinars, or in your shop's currency. Place a test order for each country you sell to and look at the currency on the order.

Then ask your courier:

1. Do you offer COD to this country at all?
2. In which currency do you collect the cash from the shopper?
3. If you convert it, at what exchange rate, and who pays for the conversion?
4. In which currency, and how often, do you pay the cash to me?

The amount on the shipment must match the total the shopper saw at checkout, in the same currency. If the shopper saw one amount and the courier asks for a different one after converting, you risk the "total higher than expected" refusal.

Who pays duties and VAT at the border?

The GCC customs union treats goods produced in any member state as national goods in all member states, and duties on goods from outside the GCC are collected at the first point of entry. That covers customs duty. VAT is separate, and the rules differ by country and change over time. Two official examples:

What Saudi Arabia's rules say

ZATCA's page for e-store customers (last updated 26 August 2026) says customs duty is not charged when the total value of the purchase is under SAR 1,000, counting the goods, shipping and insurance. It also says VAT is collected in all cases, regardless of the value of the shipment, except what the system excludes. ZATCA's VAT guideline (second edition, May 2026) adds that, during the current transitional period, goods arriving in Saudi Arabia from other GCC states count as imports, and that VAT at 15% applies to imported goods even when they are exempt from customs duty, apart from a few listed exemptions.

What Dubai's rules say

Dubai Customs' notice 16/2026 on cross-border e-commerce, in force since 3 August 2026, exempts goods worth up to AED 1,000 from customs duty, with exceptions such as tobacco and alcohol. The notice doesn't mention VAT.

These rules were checked on 26 October 2026. The Saudi and Dubai sources were both updated during 2026, so check them again before you rely on them, and check the customs authority's website for every other country you ship to. Your courier should be able to tell you what its customers usually pay on arrival.

Who is asked for the money?

Unless you arrange otherwise, the courier may ask the shopper. Two courier pages, as examples:

• DHL Express's payment FAQ for the UAE says the sender can choose to pay the destination duty and import VAT when shipping. Otherwise the receiver is responsible, and can pay online, or in cash or by cheque when the courier delivers.
• One UAE courier's cross-border terms say customs duties, taxes and clearance charges are not included in its price and should be paid by the end customer at the destination.

For a COD order, that means the shopper may be asked for your total plus a customs bill, which is exactly the kind of surprise that leads to a refusal. You have three choices:

What does a refused cross-border parcel cost?

Usually more than a domestic one. You pay for the trip out, usually for the trip back, and sometimes again at your own border. One UAE courier's cross-border terms say RTO (return to origin) applies when delivery fails, and that VAT and import duties are charged on the way back into the UAE. Dubai Customs' notice 16/2026 exempts returned goods sent to consumers from customs duty when duty was already paid on them and they come back within 60 days of leaving, so ask your courier how this applies to your returns.

Ask your courier for the full cost of a refused parcel to each country, then use what one refused COD order really costs to compare it with your margin. For how returns work, see RTO (return to origin) explained.

When should you turn COD off for cross-border orders?

Turn it off, or limit it, for a country when:

• the shopper could be asked for duties, VAT or clearance charges at the door that weren't in your checkout total;
• your courier doesn't offer COD to that country, or you can't match its payouts to your orders;
• a refused parcel costs more than you earn on a typical order to that country;
• your own orders show far more refusals there than at home.

Keeping COD makes more sense when border charges are paid before delivery, the courier collects exactly the amount and currency the shopper saw, and your refusal rate for that country is close to your home rate.

How do you turn COD off for one country on Shopify?

Shopify's payment customization Functions can read the order's shipping country, as well as its region and city. So an app can hide COD for orders going to one country and keep it for orders at home.

Khaleeji COD has no single switch for a whole country. It hides COD by region code or by city name, and only the UAE and Kuwait have a region field at checkout. For those two countries you can list every region code: the seven emirates (such as AE-DU) or Kuwait's six governorates (KW-AH, KW-KU, KW-FA, KW-JA, KW-HA and KW-MU, written as Shopify writes them). Test a real checkout to that country before you rely on the rule, especially for Kuwait. In Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman only city rules work, so check whether a city list or a cart-total limit covers what you need. The Kuwait setup help page lists the codes. See different COD rules per GCC market for how currencies and address fields shape those rules.