Your store, properly in French

A business established in Quebec that sells online needs a complete French version of its store. English or other languages can sit alongside it, but the French version can't be less complete or harder to reach. Shopify handles French natively, with its own /fr addresses, a French checkout and French order emails, and the French version is included when we set up your store for free.

What the Charter asks of an online store

Quebec's Charter of the French language, as amended by Bill 96 (Law 14 of 2022), touches an online store in five places:

• The site itself. Catalogues, brochures and similar commercial publications must be in French, and the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) states that this includes publications on a website and on social media. This is article 52.
• Other languages, on equal terms. You may offer English too, as long as the French is available on terms at least as favourable. A French site that's missing products, sale prices or checkout steps doesn't meet that bar.
• Product information. Inscriptions on products, their packaging and labels, and the documents that come with them, such as instructions and warranty certificates, must be in French.
• Service. Customers have the right to be informed and served in French before, during and after a sale. For a store, that covers order confirmations, shipping emails and customer service replies.
• Contracts of adhesion. Since June 1, 2023, a new contract whose terms the customer can't negotiate must first be given in French. The customer may then choose another language. The OQLF notes that contracts made through a website have their own rules, so your terms of sale deserve a careful look.

The dates that matter

Who it applies to

The website obligations apply to businesses with an establishment in Quebec that target the Quebec market. For businesses outside Quebec that sell to Quebecers, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business reports that the OQLF takes an incentive-based approach rather than a punitive one. The rules are enforced: the OQLF publishes its convictions every year, and the 2025 list includes businesses fined under article 52.

This page explains how we build stores, not the law. It isn't legal advice. For your situation, ask the OQLF or a lawyer.

What "complete" means on a Shopify store

Most incomplete French stores aren't missing the obvious pages. They're missing the small text nobody thinks to translate. When we set up French, we go through all of it:

• Product titles, descriptions, option names and values (Taille, Couleur) and product metafields such as ingredients or care instructions.
• Collections, menus, filters, search results and the empty-cart message.
• Refund, shipping and privacy policies, and your terms of sale.
• Order confirmation, shipping and account emails.
• Pop-ups, announcement bars, banners with text in the image, and image alt text.
• Text added by apps: reviews, size charts, subscriptions, wishlists.
• SEO titles, meta descriptions and URL handles, so French pages read well in search results.

How Shopify handles French

Shopify treats French as a full language of the store, not a widget on top. Once French is published, each page gets its own French address, for example /fr/products/tablier-en-lin, and Shopify adds the language alternates that tell search engines which version is which. Checkout and email notifications appear in the customer's language. You can translate URL handles, so French addresses use French words.

Shopify's free Translate & Adapt app holds the translations. It can machine-translate up to 2 languages on most stores (8 in some countries), and every translation can be edited by hand. We use automatic translation only as a first draft. A Quebec customer notices "courriel" versus "e-mail" and "magasiner" versus "faire du shopping", and so do we.

What we set up, free

• French published as a store language, with French addresses and translated URL handles.
• The theme, navigation, policies, checkout and notification emails in Québécois French.
• Your product content in French: imported if you already have it, otherwise drafted with Shopify's translation and reviewed by us. For very large catalogues we agree on the scope first.
• A language switcher that's easy to find on every page, on phones too.
• A final check of the French store, page by page, before you go live.

Product labels and packaging are physical, so they sit outside a store build, but we'll flag anything on your product photos that a French-speaking customer would see in English only.

Moving from another platform? Lightspeed stores that already have French content keep it; see Lightspeed to Shopify. Starting from scratch? Our guide on starting an online store in Canada covers the steps, and setting up GST and QST on Shopify covers Quebec's sales taxes. The full offer is on the free Shopify setup page, or send the request form now.