Selling alcohol online in Australia with Shopify

In Australia, alcohol licensing is a state and territory matter. There is no single national online liquor licence. The licence you need depends on where your business is, where the alcohol is stored and where it is delivered. Build the store after you know which licence covers it, because the licence conditions can change what the website has to show and how orders are fulfilled.

This guide covers the shared concepts and points you to each regulator. It is not a substitute for their pages. Rules change, and the regulators publish the current versions.

The names differ by state, but the questions are the same. Does your licence allow takeaway or packaged sales? Does it allow orders taken online or by phone? Does it allow delivery, and under what conditions? Does it let you deliver into other states? We checked the regulators we could reach in October 2026 and report only what they said.

If you sell from one state into another, check both. A producer licence, a wine sale licence and a packaged liquor licence are different things, and what each allows differs. A cellar door with a producer licence may be allowed to sell its own wine online, while a retailer reselling other brands needs a different licence. Ask the regulator in writing if the licence text is unclear.

Shopify allows alcohol sales, and puts the compliance responsibility on the merchant. Its help centre says you must follow the laws of your business's jurisdiction and of your customers' jurisdictions, along with Shopify's Terms of Service. It asks merchants to obtain and maintain all licences needed to produce, market, sell and deliver alcohol, and to use effective age verification so that alcohol cannot be bought or received by underage people. For Australia and New Zealand it lists the minimum age as 18.

Payments are the point to check early. Shopify's Shopify Payments eligibility page says the list of prohibited products and services is not exhaustive and sends you to a country-specific list. We could not confirm from Shopify's own pages whether alcohol is allowed, restricted or prohibited on Shopify Payments for Australian merchants, and secondhand reports conflict. Before you build anything, read Shopify's current Australian list and, if in doubt, ask Shopify support in writing and keep the reply. Our payments guide covers the alternatives and what they cost.

Also note that Shopify's Shop app and Shop Pay sales channel have their own product rules. Shopify's help page for Shop lists age-restricted products such as alcohol among prohibited product types there, so do not expect alcohol to appear in the Shop app.

A pop-up that asks visitors to click I am over 18 is an age gate. It is better than nothing, and it does not verify anyone. The law cares about who receives the alcohol, not who clicked a button. Use the website for the first line and the delivery for the real check.

• Put an age gate on the whole site or on alcohol collections. It sets the tone and shows you take it seriously.
• Add a checkbox at checkout confirming the buyer is 18 or over and that someone aged 18 or over will receive the order.
• Collect the recipient's name, a mobile number and the delivery instructions, so the carrier can contact them.
• Require an adult signature on delivery. Do not offer authority to leave for alcohol.
• For first-time customers or higher-risk orders, consider an identity check app. Shopify's page suggests a recognised standard for proving age in the UK, which shows what a stronger standard looks like. Check that any app you use stores data in line with Australian privacy law.
• Show your licence number in the footer, and on any page the regulator requires. In Victoria, the licence number must appear on the ordering website and in online promotions.

Delivery is where most online liquor businesses get caught. Liquor & Gaming NSW says its same day alcohol delivery framework has applied since 1 July 2021. It covers licensed takeaway businesses and delivery platforms, and its offences apply to deliveries made within NSW whether or not they happen on the same day. Providers must have systems that let delivery staff verify age and identity before handing over an order, and the regulator says delivery people must check physical ID for anyone who appears to be under 25. Retailers describing the rules also say deliveries must not be left unattended or handed to an intoxicated person, and that the delivery person records the details of the check.

Check the NSW regulator's same day delivery overview and self-audit checklist for the full requirements, because they set out the exact records and training. We have left penalties out because we could not confirm the current figures.

Victoria and South Australia

The VGCCC's guidance for packaged liquor licensees says liquor must only be delivered to a person aged 18 or over, and that you must give delivery instructions to whoever delivers it. It also requires deliveries to happen within ordinary trading hours. South Australia's guidance requires the sender and recipient to be 18 or over, and the deliverer to be satisfied the recipient is an adult.

Do not assume one policy covers every state. A single set of rules that satisfies the strictest state you deliver to is easier to run than separate rules for each.

Not every carrier takes alcohol, and those that do set conditions. Australia Post's page on sending alcohol says the service is for Business Credit Account customers using Parcel Send, and you choose a wine service such as Parcel Post Wine, or Parcel Post Wine plus Signature. If the parcel is going to a Victorian address, a Wine and alcohol declaration appears. You must answer yes if the alcohol is a gift or goes to a first-time recipient in Victoria. For those parcels, only the addressee can take delivery, and they must show valid ID proving they are 18 or over and sign for it.

Australia Post's wine guide, which covers the full rules, lists signature options for alcohol, and notes that authority to leave is not available for alcohol under its On Demand service. Confirm the current version with your account manager. For other carriers, such as Aramex, StarTrack and couriers, check each carrier's own terms before you offer them, because we have not verified their alcohol policies. Our shipping guide covers rates and carrier setup in general.

• Use packaging made for bottles, and mark parcels as containing glass.
• Create a shipping profile in Shopify just for alcohol, so alcohol only shows carriers that accept it.
• Use a carrier setup that adds the signature option by default for those products.
• Set clear cut-off times and delivery windows, since someone aged 18 or over needs to be there.

A good alcohol store is a regular Shopify store with a few extra jobs: an age gate, a checkout confirmation, a shipping profile that applies to the right products, licence details in the footer, and policies that explain delivery and ID checks. If you sell wine, beer or spirits, take a look at our wine and liquor industry page and the Coolabah Cellars concept store, which is a store we designed to show an age gate and delivery flow. It is a concept, not a client.

Our Custom package covers bespoke design, subscriptions and bundles for wine clubs, and our Launch package suits a smaller range. Wine subscriptions and bundles raise their own questions about recurring payments and returns. Alcohol you sell is still covered by consumer guarantees, so see our returns policy guide for how to word it.