How to Sell Only to US on Etsy

Etsy is a global marketplace, but sometimes sellers want to focus their efforts and simplify operations by selling exclusively within the United States. Whether you’re managing shipping logistics, navigating legal requirements, or simply prefer to serve American customers, narrowing your reach can streamline your business and help you thrive in a competitive landscape. This comprehensive guide explains how to set up your Etsy shop for US-only sales, optimize your presence for American buyers, and maximize your success in the US market.

To sell only to US buyers on Etsy, you edit your shipping profiles — not a shop-wide setting, because Etsy does not have one. In Shop Manager go to Settings → Shipping settings, open each shipping profile, delete the Everywhere else destination row, and leave United States as the only destination. Buyers outside the countries listed in a profile cannot complete checkout on any listing attached to it. Repeat for every profile you use, because a single forgotten profile with "Everywhere else" still active will keep taking international orders.

Why it has to be done per profile

Etsy controls destinations at the shipping-profile level, and a shop can have many profiles — one for lightweight prints, one for framed pieces, one for oversized goods. Etsy's Shipping Destination Settings documentation describes destinations as a property of the profile, so restricting your shop means auditing every profile you have ever created, including ones attached to sold-out or expired listings you may later renew.

The practical sequence:

1. Shop Manager → Settings → Shipping settings → Shipping profiles.
2. Open a profile and check the "Ships from" country and the destination rows beneath it.
3. Use the trash icon to remove Everywhere else. This is the row that quietly permits worldwide orders.
4. Remove any other country rows — Canada and the United Kingdom are common leftovers from a default setup.
5. Confirm United States remains with a valid delivery cost and delivery time estimate, then save.
6. Go back to the profile list and repeat until every profile shows United States only.

Then spot-check the result. Open one of your live listings in a private browser window and use the shipping estimator to select a non-US country. If the profile is set correctly, Etsy returns no delivery option rather than a price.

The gap most shops miss: digital listings

Shipping profiles govern physical orders. A digital download listing has no shipping profile at all, which means destination settings simply do not apply to it. If your shop mixes printables with physical goods, tightening your profiles will restrict the physical side and leave every digital listing purchasable from anywhere in the world.

There is no clean fix for this inside Etsy's shipping tools. If keeping digital sales domestic genuinely matters to you — usually it does not, since a download costs you nothing to deliver across a border — your realistic options are to check Etsy's current digital item settings for any country controls Etsy has added, or to cancel and refund non-US orders manually, which is slow and risks the buyer leaving a poor review. For most shops the honest answer is that digital listings stay global, and that is fine.

Sales tax when you sell US-only

Restricting to the US does not create a new tax obligation for you on Etsy orders. Under state marketplace facilitator laws, Etsy calculates, collects, and remits US state sales tax on orders automatically, including on digital downloads, and sellers cannot opt out. Etsy sets this out in How US State Sales Tax and Fees Applies to Etsy Orders. Where a state requires you to file a return, Etsy sales are generally reported as marketplace-facilitated rather than as tax you collected yourself.

Income tax is separate and still yours. The IRS requires a return once net earnings from self-employment reach $400 for the year, per the IRS self-employment tax guidance. That threshold is low enough that a modest side shop clears it.

What you give up, in numbers

Two Etsy fees disappear or shrink when you go US-only from a US bank account. The 2.5% currency conversion fee, charged when your listing currency differs from your payment account currency, stops applying if you list and get paid in USD. Customs forms, international delivery windows measured in weeks, and lost-parcel claims across borders also go away.

What you lose is reach. Etsy's marketplace is global, and cutting destinations removes those buyers permanently — not just from checkout but from the pool of people your listings compete for. Before you commit, pull Shop Manager → Stats and look at the orders-by-country breakdown for the last 12 months. If international is 3% of orders and generates most of your shipping complaints, restricting is a clear win. If it is 25%, you are cutting a quarter of your revenue to avoid customs forms.

What does not work

• Writing "US buyers only" in the listing description or shop announcement. Text does not block checkout. An international buyer will order, and you are then choosing between an unwanted international shipment and a cancellation.
• Setting a punitive international shipping price. Someone eventually pays it, and now you owe them a package you did not want to send.
• Changing your shop location. Your account region does not determine which countries can see or buy your listings.
• Fixing one profile and assuming you are done. This is the single most common cause of a "why did I get an order from Australia?" surprise.

Common questions

How do I set Etsy to US only?

There is no single shop-level switch. Edit every shipping profile under Settings → Shipping settings, delete the "Everywhere else" destination row and any non-US countries, and leave United States as the only destination. Digital download listings are not covered by shipping profiles and stay available worldwide.

How do I search Etsy for USA-only items?

As a shopper, run your search and use the Ships from filter in the left sidebar, setting it to United States. This filters by where the seller ships from, which is what most people mean by "US only." It is a buyer-side filter and has no connection to your seller settings.

How do I stop selling internationally on Etsy?

Remove all non-US destinations from every shipping profile. Do it before a busy season rather than during one, and re-check after you create any new profile — new profiles do not inherit the restriction from your existing ones.

How much does Etsy take from a $100 sale?

Using the fees Etsy publishes on its US seller page: a $0.20 listing fee, a 6.5% transaction fee, and payment processing of 3% + $0.25 for a US bank account. On a $100 item that is $6.50 + $3.25 + $0.20 = $9.95, just under 10%, leaving roughly $90.05 before your cost of goods.

Two things push it higher. The 6.5% transaction fee applies to the shipping price you charge as well as the item price, so a $100 item with $10 shipping is assessed on $110. And if the sale came through Offsite Ads, Etsy adds a 15% advertising fee — turning that $9.95 into roughly $24.95 on the same order. Listings run for four months or until they sell, so the $0.20 recurs on renewal. Fees change; check Etsy's seller page for current rates before you build them into your pricing.

A sensible middle path

Before restricting everything, consider keeping one US-only profile for your heavy or fragile items and leaving a worldwide profile on small flat goods that ship in a rigid mailer for a few dollars. That captures international demand where it is cheap and low-risk, and blocks it where it is not. Etsy lets you assign a different profile to each listing, so this costs nothing but the setup time.

This article is general information, not legal, tax, or accounting advice. Etsy fees, tax thresholds, and marketplace facilitator rules change and vary by state and situation — verify current details with Etsy's Help Center and a qualified tax professional before relying on them.