Key takeaways
- Shopify POS 11.0 shipped with a faster checkout experience and improved cart and transaction processing.
- Custom metafields can now be used as dimensions and filters in Analytics - segment your data without leaving Shopify.
- Legacy customer accounts are now deprecated and will no longer receive feature updates or support.
- VAT number validation at checkout is now available for EU and UK merchants using Shopify Tax.
Here are the Shopify updates February 2026 - new Shopify features February 2026, Shopify AI updates, Shopify POS updates, and Shopify analytics changes all in one place. February brought improvements across POS, tax, analytics, payments, and fulfillment.
Related guide: adding tracking scripts to Shopify.
Related guide: changing checkout field labels.
POS & Retail
Shopify POS 11.0.
The biggest POS release in some time. Version 11.0 delivers a faster checkout experience with rebuilt cart and transaction processing. High-volume retail environments should notice the speed difference, particularly during busy periods when processing time compounds across many transactions.
Enable offline checkout per device.
Staff can now activate offline checkout mode on a per-device basis directly from POS settings, with activity logging for each instance. Useful for pop-up setups or locations with unreliable connectivity - and now auditable, so you know when and where offline mode was used.
Fulfill inventory transfers from POS.
Retail staff can now fulfill inventory transfers directly from Shopify POS without switching to the admin. This speeds up stock movements between locations and removes a step that previously required a desktop.
Analytics
Use metafields as dimensions and filters.
Custom metafields can now be used to segment and filter data in Shopify Analytics. If you track product attributes, customer tags, or order metadata as metafields, you can now slice your analytics by those values - without exporting to a third-party tool. This is a significant expansion of what’s possible in the native analytics interface.
Improved US sales tax reports.
Sales tax reports for United States merchants now include more product category detail and corrected jurisdiction totals. Useful for merchants filing in multiple states who previously needed to reconcile discrepancies manually.
AI & Sidekick
Sidekick creates customers and companies.
Related guide: using Shopify Sidekick.
Sidekick can now handle customer and company creation directly. Describe the customer you want to add, and Sidekick fills the form. Useful for B2B merchants onboarding new wholesale accounts without manually entering company details.
Sidekick writes ShopifyQL queries.
Sidekick can now write ShopifyQL queries for web performance and payments data. Ask for a specific report in plain language and Sidekick generates the query - useful for merchants who want custom data views without learning the query syntax.
Payments & Finance
Issuer memos visible on dispute pages.
Bank explanations for chargebacks - issuer memos - are now visible on the dispute details page and available to download. These explain the bank’s reasoning for the chargeback, which helps when building a defence or deciding whether to contest.
Payment requests per fulfillment.
Separate payment requests can now be sent for each fulfillment within an order. Useful for B2B merchants billing against partial shipments, or any merchant who fulfills orders in multiple stages and needs to invoice accordingly.
Auto-lock staff Balance and Credit cards.
Account owners can now set automatic lock dates on staff Balance and Credit cards. Useful for temporary workers, contractors, or seasonal staff where card access should expire automatically.
Payout exports include Bank Reference.
Payout exports now include the Bank Reference field, and order transaction exports include Payout ID. This makes it easier to match specific payouts to bank deposits without manual reconciliation.
Tax & Compliance
VAT number validation at checkout.
EU and UK merchants using Shopify Tax can now enable automatic VAT number validation at checkout. Valid VAT numbers trigger automatic reverse charge exemption - removing VAT for eligible B2B transactions without manual intervention.
California embedded battery fee.
Shopify Tax now calculates California’s embedded battery waste recycling fee for eligible products. Merchants selling batteries or battery-containing products in California no longer need to handle this manually.
Duty calculation breakdown on orders.
Detailed duty calculation breakdowns are now visible on order pages. Merchants shipping internationally can see exactly how duties were calculated for each order - useful for customer queries and reconciliation.
Shipping
DHL Kleinpaket available in Germany.
Related guide: adding shipping disclaimers.
A new DHL Kleinpaket option is available for German merchants shipping small packages. Kleinpaket is DHL’s lower-cost tier for lightweight parcels, and its addition expands the native shipping rate options for German merchants without needing a third-party integration.
Catalog & Inventory
Edit shipment line items at any stage.
Related guide: updating variant names in Shopify.
Shipment line items can now be edited at any point, not just before fulfillment begins. Useful for correcting errors on in-progress shipments without cancelling and recreating them.
Receive inventory without specifying an origin location.
Merchants can now receive incoming inventory without having to specify a Shopify origin location. This simplifies the receiving process for merchants who source from suppliers outside their Shopify location network.
Fixed bundles on Google.
Fixed bundles now publish to Google Shopping with no additional setup. Bundles appear as a single listing with the combined price, making them eligible for Google’s shopping surfaces without manual product feed configuration.
Customer Accounts
Legacy customer accounts deprecated.
Legacy customer accounts no longer receive feature updates or technical support. Shopify is directing all development to the new customer accounts experience. Merchants still using legacy accounts should plan a migration - new features like account-level email updates and improved account management are only available in the new system.
