Shopify Wholesale Application Form: Native Requests and VAT Checks

Trade buyers who want your wholesale prices need a way to ask for them. In many shops that is still a “Wholesale enquiries” email address, followed by a back-and-forth for the company details, a manual check of the VAT number, and someone creating the company in Shopify field by field.

Since Shopify B2B reached the Basic, Grow and Advanced plans in April 2026 (Shopify Changelog), more shops want a proper application form. Shopify has one built in. This guide covers what it does, what it leaves to you, how to check an EU VAT ID, and a checklist for approving applications. For the wider B2B setup, see selling wholesale on Shopify in 2026.

What a wholesale application should collect

Before choosing a tool, decide what you need to approve someone:

• Company name and a contact email. These are the minimum.
• VAT ID, if you sell to businesses in other EU countries and need it for invoicing.
• Business address and phone.
• One to three questions of your own, for example “What kind of shop do you run?” or “Expected order volume per month”.

Keep it short. Every extra field is a reason for a good buyer to leave the form half filled.

The native option: company account requests

Shopify’s built-in route is a company account request form, made with the Shopify Forms app (Shopify Help Center). What it does, according to Shopify’s help:

• Creates the records for you. On submit, a company, a company location and a customer are created in the admin.
• Company name and email are required; you can add other fields, including custom ones such as text, dropdowns or a file upload. A tax ID is not a standard field, so you add it yourself if you want it.
• Holds new companies for review. By default, companies wait in the Ordering not approved tab and cannot order or see B2B prices until approved. To approve, you open Manage permissions, assign locations and permissions, and continue. To reject, you delete the company.
• Can approve automatically with a Shopify Flow template, if you want every applicant in.
• Can email the buyer on approval, if you tick the option to notify them.

Two limits worth knowing before you build on it:

• Gated stores can’t use it. Shopify notes that the form isn’t accessible to buyers who aren’t logged in on a dedicated B2B store that is closed to the public.
• Prices and terms are separate steps. The form creates the company; giving it the right catalog and payment terms is up to you. Below Shopify Plus, catalogs reach companies through a B2B market, so the new location has to be in the right market.

For many shops this is enough. If you approve a few applications a month and don’t need a VAT check, the native form plus a short approval routine works well.

Checking an EU VAT ID in VIES

If you sell to businesses in other EU countries, you will want to check the VAT ID a buyer gives you. The European Commission’s VIES service lets you check a VAT number against the member state’s database. Two things to keep in mind:

• VIES says whether the VAT ID exists. It does not verify the business, its owner or its creditworthiness.
• A “not found” result is not always fraud. A number can be missing from VIES for reasons on the tax authority’s side, and the service is sometimes unreachable. Check again, then ask the buyer.

Whether and how you use the result for invoicing is a tax question for your adviser.

A checklist for approving an application

1. Company and contact look real: website, address, the email domain matches the company.
2. VAT ID checked, if you need one, and the result noted on the company.
3. Answers to your questions fit the buyers you want.
4. Market and catalog chosen, so the buyer sees the right prices after logging in.
5. Payment terms set, for example Net 30, or none for prepayment (payment terms).
6. Access email sent, so the buyer knows they can log in.
7. Rejected applications answered with a short reason, so a buyer is not left waiting.

Steps 4 to 6 are where approvals stall: they happen on different screens, and on a busy day someone approves the company but forgets the terms.

Where Tradeo: B2B Trade Accounts fits

Tradeo: B2B Trade Accounts is an app for wholesale applications and selling on account. It does the steps above in one place:

• An application form block for a page of your store (Online Store 2.0 theme), with an optional VAT ID field, phone and business address, and up to three questions of your own. The form shows each problem next to its field before sending.
• A VIES check of EU VAT IDs when the application arrives: Valid in VIES, Not found in VIES, VIES not reachable or Not an EU VAT ID, not checked, with Check again when VIES was down.
• Approval in one step. Choose the B2B market, Payment terms and Credit limit (they start from your defaults in Settings) and click Approve application. The app creates the company, its location and contact in Shopify, adds the location to the market and sets the payment terms.
• Rejection with a message you send from your own email program.

It does not create catalogs, price lists or markets: it adds the company to the B2B market you already set up. VIES only says whether a VAT ID exists, so it is not a business verification. With new customer accounts, the app can’t send Shopify’s access email; you send the B2B access email from the company in Shopify.

See Tradeo: B2B Trade Accounts.

FAQ

Does Shopify have a wholesale application form?

Yes. Company account requests, made with the Shopify Forms app, create a company, location and customer from each submission and hold them for your approval.

Can I check VAT numbers automatically in Shopify?

Shopify’s company account request form does not check VAT numbers. You can check them by hand in VIES, or use an app that runs the check when the application arrives.

Do I need Shopify Plus for wholesale applications?

No. Companies, B2B catalogs on B2B markets and payment terms are available on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. Plus adds catalogs assigned directly to companies.

What happens to a rejected application?

With the native form, rejecting means deleting the company Shopify created. Let the buyer know why, so they can reapply with the right details.