One profile per country
Cross-border means separate approvals and settlement — plan the paperwork per market.
Integrations / Payments
How to Integrate PayTabs with Shopify (Egypt, KSA & GCC)
PayTabs earns its place when you sell into more than one MENA country. Here is how to connect it to Shopify and configure it for cross-border card, mada and Apple Pay payments.
- Steps7
- Time2 hrs
- DifficultySome account setup required
WHY THIS MATTERS
PayTabs is a multi-country gateway: Egypt, KSA, UAE and the wider GCC, each with local acquiring and currency. If your store ships to several MENA markets, one PayTabs setup can cover them where a single-country gateway cannot. The trade-off is that each country is effectively its own merchant profile and settlement, so the work is in configuring currencies, mada for Saudi, and Apple Pay correctly rather than in the connection itself. Compare it against the other regional options in our Egypt & Saudi payment methods guide.
Before you start
- A PayTabs merchant account for each country you sell in
- Business documents per market
- A Shopify store
- Your target currencies and settlement bank
Step by step
The same sequence we follow on client stores. Do them in order — several of the later steps depend on decisions made in the earlier ones.
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Choose PayTabs for the right reason
Pick PayTabs when you sell across multiple MENA countries or need multi-currency acquiring. If you only sell in Egypt, Paymob (see the Paymob setup guide) is usually the simpler choice.
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Set up a merchant profile per market
Get approved in each country you take payments in. Saudi and Egypt are separate profiles with separate settlement — plan for the paperwork in every market, not just your home one.
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Connect PayTabs to Shopify
Add PayTabs from the Shopify App Store and authenticate. Use test credentials first so you can run transactions without moving real money.
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Enable cards, mada and Apple Pay
Turn on the methods each market expects — international cards everywhere, mada for Saudi domestic debit, and Apple Pay for one-tap mobile checkout. mada is not optional if you are serious about KSA.
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Get currency and settlement right
Match the checkout currency to the market and confirm which currency each profile settles in. A shopper billed in the wrong currency pays an FX markup and is more likely to abandon.
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Test 3-D Secure and the failure paths
Run a successful payment, a 3-D Secure challenge, a decline, and a refund per market. The 3DS and decline paths are where cross-border checkouts actually break.
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Confirm the checkout in Arabic and on mobile
Verify the hosted step renders in RTL and on a real phone. See the Arabic RTL guide for the wider bilingual checklist.
What we do differently
The three things that separate a working setup from a default one — drawn from the stores we ship, not from the documentation.
mada for Saudi is non-negotiable
A KSA checkout without mada leaves the domestic debit shopper out.
Bill in the local currency
Wrong-currency checkouts add an FX markup and lose conversions.
Would rather we just did it?
We set this up on every store we build, and we do it as standalone work too. Start with a free audit — we will tell you what is worth changing before you spend anything.
Frequently Asked
Questions
What clients ask us about this integration before we set it up.
PayTabs or Paymob for an Egypt-only store?
For Egypt only, Paymob is usually the simpler single integration and bundles Fawry and local instalments. PayTabs pulls ahead when you sell across Egypt, Saudi and the GCC and need multi-country, multi-currency acquiring.
Does PayTabs support Apple Pay and mada?
Yes — PayTabs supports Apple Pay and, for Saudi Arabia, mada domestic debit. Enable both where the market expects them.
Can one account cover several countries?
You take payments per market through a country merchant profile, each with its own acquiring and settlement. One PayTabs relationship can span markets, but treat each country as its own setup.