Free Shipping to Alaska and Hawaii: Rules

A free shipping offer written for the 48 contiguous states quietly changes meaning the day an order comes from Honolulu or Anchorage. The shopper sees the same banner, your carrier sees a different distance, and you either eat the difference or surprise the customer at checkout. Free shipping to Alaska and Hawaii needs its own rule. This page prices that difference on one stated parcel from the USPS price list, shows how to put Alaska, Hawaii and the territories in their own Shopify zone, compares three policies, and gives wording for the exception. If you still need the general threshold formula, start with Free Shipping Threshold: The Formula. This page assumes you have one and covers only the far destinations.

Why the contiguous-48 assumption breaks

The cost of a parcel depends on its zone, and a zone depends on your origin. USPS says on its Domestic Zone Chart page that the first three digits of the destination ZIP Code determine the zone, and its Domestic Mail Manual defines zones by distance: zone 7 reaches out to a radius of about 1,800 miles from the center of the origin's area, and zone 8 includes everything outside zone 7. Zone 9 is reserved for Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.

So Alaska and Hawaii do not have a fixed zone of their own. On October 10, 2026, USPS's zone lookup for a ZIP Code pair, with an effective date of October 1, 2026, returned zone 8 from New York (10001), Los Angeles (90001), Chicago (60601) and Austin (78701) to both Anchorage (99501) and Honolulu (96813). The same tool returned zone 5 from New York to Orlando (32801), and zone 8 from New York to San Francisco (94105). That last result is the useful one: for an East Coast warehouse, a parcel to Anchorage sits in the same zone as a parcel to California.

Territories are not all alike either. From New York (10001), the lookup returned zone 7 for San Juan, Puerto Rico (00901) and zone 8 for Guam (96910). Run your own origin ZIP code through the tool for each destination you care about, because the answer changes with where you ship from.

What the price list shows

The USPS price list, Notice 123, effective October 4, 2026, prices USPS Ground Advantage commercial parcels by weight and by zone from 1 to 9. These are the list prices for a parcel in each weight row at zones 5 and 8; they exclude fees such as a dimensional or package surcharge, and your own contract may differ.

The premium for the far zone grows with weight, so what matters is the weight of the parcels that cross your threshold, not your lightest product. This price list is one carrier. If you ship with UPS, FedEx or a regional carrier, read your own rate card and any surcharges the carrier applies to these destinations, which this page does not quote.

Putting Alaska, Hawaii and territories in their own zone

Shopify's Help Center describes a shipping zone as a group of countries or regions. It says a country or region can exist in only one zone, that you must remove a location from one zone before adding it to another, and that a customer in a region outside your zones is told no shipping rate is available. The page does not mention Alaska or Hawaii by name, so check in your own admin that those states appear as selectable regions, then:

1. Remove Alaska and Hawaii from your main US zone, because a region can be in only one zone.
2. Create a zone for them, with its own name, and add its own rates.
3. Do the same for the territories you ship to, with their own rates, or leave them out if you do not serve them.
4. Place an order from a test address in each zone and read what the checkout offers.

A shopper whose address is in no zone you serve has no rate to choose, so decide on purpose which places you serve.

Three policies, priced

Assume a parcel of 2 pounds shipped from the New York ZIP code above, a product margin of 55 percent, a free shipping threshold of 75 dollars for the contiguous states, and a decision to give no more than a quarter of the margin to the carrier. These are assumptions for the arithmetic. The cost figures are the list prices in the table.

At 75 dollars, the margin on the cart is 0.55 × 75 = 41.25 dollars. A zone 5 parcel costs 10.50 dollars, which is 25.5 percent of that margin. A zone 8 parcel costs 13.42 dollars, which is 32.5 percent.

Policy 1, include. Alaska and Hawaii get the same free shipping over 75 dollars. You absorb 13.42 dollars instead of 10.50, which is 2.92 dollars more on each of these orders, which puts the carrier 7.5 points over your 25 percent line. For every 100 qualifying orders from these states, the extra cost beyond a zone 5 shipment is 292 dollars, and the total shipping you pay is 1,342 dollars. This is the simplest to explain. It is the right choice when the share of orders to these states is small and the parcels are light.

Policy 2, exclude. The offer applies to the contiguous states only, and Alaska and Hawaii pay a shipping rate set at what the carrier charges. You absorb nothing on the far orders. The cost is on the shopper's side, and so is the risk: a shopper who sees a 13.42 dollar shipping charge on a 2-pound parcel may leave. Use this when your parcels are heavy, because the premium is not 2.92 dollars but 8.58 dollars at 10 pounds.

Policy 3, a higher threshold. Free shipping in these zones starts higher. The threshold formula from the threshold post is T = S ÷ (k × m), here with k = 0.25 and m = 0.55:

• Zone 5, 2 lb: 10.50 ÷ 0.1375 = 76.36 dollars, so about 75 dollars.
• Zone 8, 2 lb: 13.42 ÷ 0.1375 = 97.60 dollars, so about 98 dollars.
• Zone 8, 5 lb: 20.24 ÷ 0.1375 = 147.20 dollars, against 105.67 dollars in zone 5.

At 98 dollars the margin is 53.90 dollars, and 13.42 is 24.9 percent of it, which meets your line. The shopper in Honolulu has to reach 98 dollars instead of 75. That is a reachable stretch on a light parcel and a hard one at 5 pounds.

None of the three is right for everyone. Policy 1 gives away the least control, policy 2 gives up the most orders, and policy 3 needs a clear message. Export the last 90 days of orders to these states, weigh the parcels that would have crossed the threshold, and price the three on your own invoices.

Wording the exception

The FTC's guide on the word "free," 16 CFR 251.1(c), says all the terms, conditions and obligations for getting a "free" item should be set out clearly and conspicuously at the outset of the offer. It adds that disclosure in a footnote reached through an asterisk does not count. For free shipping, "Free shipping over 75 dollars" with a restriction to the contiguous states in small print is the wrong shape. Put the condition inside the offer itself, for example "Free shipping over 75 dollars to the 48 contiguous states. Alaska and Hawaii: free over 98 dollars." Say the same thing in the cart bar, on the product page and at checkout, and make sure the shipping options a shopper in Anchorage sees match the words. This is not legal advice; confirm the wording with counsel.

Setting tiers per zone

With the zones in place, set the amounts per zone. Shopify's free shipping discount lets you choose which countries it applies to, and its "Exclude shipping rates over a certain amount" setting applies to shipping rates only, so it can stop the discount from covering a rate you set above a limit. That is a second way to run policy 3 without building a threshold for each zone. Shopify's Help Center adds that the minimum purchase amount counts product prices only, never taxes.

If you prefer to manage thresholds as steps, the Shipping discount tiers template in Freebies Engine by Log Studio Lab is described as "Discounted or free shipping above a cart value." Use one tier set for the contiguous states and the tiers you computed above for the far zones, and plan requirements are on the pricing page. For the rest of the options on free shipping amounts, read Free Shipping Over $50 on Shopify: Setup, and for how a gift's weight changes the parcel cost, see Free Gift Margin Math, With Worked Examples.

After a month, check three numbers for the far zones separately from the rest: orders, shipping absorbed as a share of margin, and refunds or complaints about shipping charges.