Woo Disable Shipping Zone to User Roles

WordPress/WooCommerce plugin for B2B stores that lets you associate each user role with one or more permitted shipping zones. Logged-in users can only ship to countries included in the zones configured for their role.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.0+
• PHP 7.4+
• WooCommerce 7.0+
• HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage) compatible

Installation

1. Copy the woo-disable-shipping-zone-to-useroles folder to wp-content/plugins/.
2. Activate the plugin from Plugins → Installed Plugins.
3. Make sure WooCommerce is installed and active.
4. Configure the rules from WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping → Shipping Zone Roles.

Use case

Designed for B2B sites where each customer has a dedicated role that identifies their commercial region (e.g. Italy, Europe, USA, Japan, rest of world).

Example: a user with the it_customer role can only ship within the "Italy" zone. They cannot select a checkout country from another zone (e.g. Germany). To ship elsewhere, an administrator must assign them a different role.

Configuration

Prerequisites

Before configuring the plugin:

1. Create the required user roles (via a role management plugin or custom code).
2. Configure shipping zones under WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping → Shipping zones.

Roles and zones are loaded dynamically from the site — the plugin contains no predefined lists.

Settings page

Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping → Shipping Zone Roles.

Direct URL:

/wp-admin/admin.php?page=wc-settings&tab=shipping&section=zone-roles

For each row you can define:

Field	Description
Role	User role, chosen from all roles registered on the site
Permitted shipping zones	One or more WooCommerce shipping zones allowed for that role

Available actions:

• Add row — adds a new configuration row
• Remove — removes a row
• Save changes — saves all rules (WooCommerce settings button at the bottom of the page)

Example configuration

Role	Permitted zones
it_customer	Italy zone
eu_customer	Europe zone
us_customer	USA zone
row_customer	Locations not covered by your other zones

Actual role and zone names depend on your site configuration.

Multiple rules

• Same role on multiple rows: permitted zones are merged automatically on save.
• User with multiple configured roles: can ship to the union of zones from all applicable roles.
• Role without rules: no restriction is applied to that user.

Checkout behaviour

The plugin applies three levels of control, from most proactive to most defensive:

1. UI prevention

The Shipping country dropdown only shows countries belonging to the permitted zones for the logged-in user's role. Non-allowed countries are not selectable.

2. Checkout validation

• On every AJAX checkout form update, the country is validated.
• On order submission, the country is checked again.
• If the country is not allowed, the order is rejected with an error message.

3. Shipping method filter

If an unauthorized country somehow bypasses the previous checks, shipping methods are removed as a final safeguard.

User message

When shipping to a country is not allowed, the user sees a message such as:

Shipping to the selected country is not available for your account. Please contact the store administrator if you need to change your shipping region.

Handled scenarios

Scenario	Behaviour
User tries to select a non-permitted country	Country does not appear in the dropdown
User with a saved address in a non-permitted country	Checkout rejected with an error message
Form manipulation (POST/AJAX)	Order blocked during validation
Postcode/city change within the same permitted country	No additional restriction

Internationalization

• Text domain: woo-disable-shipping-zone-to-useroles
• Template file: languages/woo-disable-shipping-zone-to-useroles.pot
• Italian translation: languages/woo-disable-shipping-zone-to-useroles-it_IT.po

To enable translations in production, compile the .mo file from the .po or use a plugin such as Loco Translate.

Developer extensions

Filter selectable roles in admin

add_filter( 'wdszur_admin_selectable_roles', function ( array $roles ): array {
    unset( $roles['administrator'], $roles['shop_manager'] );
    return $roles;
} );

Allows excluding system roles from the configuration dropdown without modifying the plugin code.

Configuration option

Rules are stored in the WordPress option wdszur_rules:

[
    [
        'role'          => 'it_customer',
        'allowed_zones' => [ 1 ],
    ],
]

• role — WordPress role slug
• allowed_zones — array of WooCommerce zone IDs (0 = "Rest of the world")

WooCommerce hooks used

Hook	Purpose
woocommerce_countries_shipping_countries	Limits selectable checkout countries
woocommerce_checkout_update_order_review	Validates country on every AJAX update
woocommerce_after_checkout_validation	Blocks order on submit if country is not allowed
woocommerce_package_rates	Removes shipping methods as defense in depth
woocommerce_no_shipping_available_html	Custom message when no shipping methods are available

Admin integration hooks

Hook	Purpose
woocommerce_get_sections_shipping	Registers the "Shipping Zone Roles" section
woocommerce_settings_shipping	Renders the section content
woocommerce_update_options_shipping	Saves rules on form submit

Plugin structure

woo-disable-shipping-zone-to-useroles/
├── woo-disable-shipping-zone-to-useroles.php   # Bootstrap
├── includes/
│   ├── class-plugin.php
│   ├── class-rules-repository.php
│   ├── class-user-role-resolver.php
│   ├── class-zone-resolver.php
│   ├── class-checkout-country-restrictor.php
│   └── class-shipping-filter.php
├── admin/
│   ├── class-settings-page.php
│   ├── class-admin-data-provider.php
│   ├── views/settings-page.php
│   └── assets/
├── languages/
└── README.md

Important notes

• The plugin is designed for B2B sites with registered, authenticated users. Guest users are not restricted.
• Roles and zones are never hardcoded — they are always read from the host site configuration.
• The plugin does not modify WooCommerce core classes; it uses native hooks only.
• If a configured role or zone is removed from the site, associated rules are ignored at runtime until updated from the settings page.

Author

Accorinti Lorenzo — vision.ego.it

License

Distributed under the same license as the WordPress plugin.