Ask how to turn on age verification in Shopify and the answer is that there is nothing to turn on. No setting in the admin, no help center article describing one. The feature does not exist.

That is not an oversight. Shopify's developer docs use age verification as the worked example for the block_progress capability in checkout UI extensions — for some purchases you must collect a customer's age and verify it meets a minimum value. Instead of shipping the feature, the platform ships the machinery for apps to build it.

So the question is not which app is best, but what the platform permits an app to do. Four facts settle most of it: the official consent checkbox supports only one policy type; checkout-step extensions are gated behind Shopify Plus; progress blocking is a merchant setting the merchant can decline; and a theme-side gate cannot cover checkout, POS, or your product feeds.

Above all of it sits a merchandise layer: for alcohol, tobacco, and gambling, Shopify imposes restrictions no app resolves.

Below: those limits, a worked example of how one country's rules fail to match what these apps offer, and 11 apps verified on their live listings. Research date: September 1, 2026. Prices in USD.

The short version

Shopify cannot do age verification natively. An app or a custom build is mandatory.

Asking for age partway through checkout requires Shopify Plus in most cases. Otherwise you have the theme surface — product page, cart, cart drawer — plus the Thank you and Order status pages.

Check whether Shopify will let you sell the product at all first. The Shop sales channel prohibits age-restricted goods outright.

Compliance requirements are jurisdiction-specific and rarely match what these apps do. The entrance popup this category sells is a UX pattern, not a legal artifact.

By scenario:

• Japanese admin UI and support, cheapest — CC Age Verification ($3.99/mo)
• Japanese UI with an install history — Age Verification Supporter — 年齢確認サポーター ($9/mo)
• Japanese UI plus cross-border languages — UR:DOB Age Verification ($6.99/mo)
• All three prompt styles for free — NA Age Verification
• Per-product targeting on a budget — AVP ‑ Age Verification Popup (from BASIC $3.99/mo)
• Weight of review evidence — Blockify Age Verification 18+ (4.9, about 300 reviews)
• Tobacco and other high-risk categories — iDenfy ID Verification, plus your regulator

What the platform actually allows

The consent checkbox component can't be used for age

"Just add an 'I am over 20' checkbox to checkout" hits a documented wall. Shopify's s-consent-checkbox component supports only sms-marketing as its policy attribute, and the docs state that other consent policy types aren't available through it. A generic s-checkbox can sit in an extension as UI, but Shopify records nothing and enforces nothing — both become the app's job.

Checkout-step extensions are Shopify Plus only

Shopify documents that checkout UI extensions for the information, shipping, and payment steps are available only to stores on a Shopify Plus plan, and the help center comparison table agrees: unavailable on Basic, available on Plus. Non-Plus stores get the Thank you and Order status pages plus the theme surface. On a non-Plus plan you generally cannot ask for age inside checkout at all.

block_progress is a setting the merchant can decline

Even on Plus, blocking checkout progress takes effect only if the merchant permits it in the checkout editor. Where it has not been permitted, Shopify documents that behavior: 'block' is treated as 'allow'. A gate that silently degrades to a pass-through is worse than no gate, because the store believes it is protected.

Functions are the one thing customers can't bypass

Cart and Checkout Validation Functions run on Shopify's servers and, Shopify states, "can't be bypassed by customers" — technically the most robust foundation here. Two caveats: the documentation states no Plus requirement for them, and whether there is a per-plan cap on function count could not be confirmed. A related gap: there is no date-of-birth field in the standard registration form, and no standard field or metafield definition for customer date of birth could be confirmed on shopify.dev.

A theme JavaScript gate cannot cover checkout, POS, or feeds

A Liquid-and-JavaScript entrance gate is buildable; the problem is coverage. Checkout UI extensions run in an isolated sandbox with no access to the checkout page's HTML or assets — from the theme side, that means checkout is outside the theme's jurisdiction. Theme JavaScript does not run at checkout, so opening a checkout URL directly walks past the gate, and the same is true of Shopify POS.

Direct product links, disabled JavaScript, and hand-edited cookies also remain open, as structural consequences of client-side code. And product feeds to Google Shopping or Meta are generated from product data, so they never pass the gate at all.

Merchandise limits no app can fix

Layer	Alcohol	Tobacco
Shop sales channel	Prohibited	Prohibited
Managed Markets	Restricted	Restricted
Shopify Payments (help center categories)	Not listed	Listed as prohibited
Shopify Payments Japan (terms delegate to Stripe Japan)	Not on Japan prohibited list	Restricted business (extra due diligence)

The Shop channel's prohibited products page names "Age-restricted products such as alcohol, tobacco, or gambling." An age verification app does not make these sellable there.

Shopify Payments is where sources contradict each other. The eligibility page lists "tobacco and related products" among prohibited categories. Shopify Payments' Japanese terms delegate the prohibited-and-restricted determination to the payment processor's own list, and the processor in Japan is Stripe Japan Co., Ltd. Stripe's Japanese-language list (last updated May 13, 2026) classifies tobacco not as prohibited but as a restricted business requiring additional due diligence, and alcohol is absent from the Japan-specific prohibited list.

Given that documented contradiction, ask Shopify directly before you build anything. One more item from the same Stripe list, easy to trip over in Japan: businesses that do not publish the legally mandated Act on Specified Commercial Transactions disclosure page are named as prohibited.

A worked example: why "age verification" isn't one requirement

Read this structurally: legal requirements are jurisdiction-specific and rarely match what age verification apps ship. US, EU, and UK requirements differ from these and from each other, so check your own. None of it is legal advice; it summarizes published government material, and the operative determination belongs to your regulator.

Alcohol: a field on the order form, not a popup at the door

Japan's National Tax Agency Notice No. 9, item 7(2), specifies where the age element goes: on the form the purchaser fills in — or, for applications received via the internet, the screen relating to the application — provide a field for the applicant's age, and adjacent to it display that drinking by persons under 20 is prohibited by law, or that alcohol will not be sold to persons under 20.

The location named is the screen relating to the application, the order form — not a modal at the store entrance. An arrival popup is unlikely to satisfy that placement requirement; what you want collects age on the cart or product page and writes it into the order.

NTA commentary adds that where no staff member meets the customer on delivery, a copy of a driver's licence or other identification should be requested. Note the source level: that sits in circulars and explanatory material, not the notice itself.

Tobacco: government-ID verification plus identity matching, as a licence condition

The Ministry of Finance's guidance on internet mail-order tobacco sales sets a harder standard as a condition of the retail licence: verify in advance, by means of an official certificate, that the prospective purchaser is 20 or over, then confirm the purchaser is the person named on that certificate, and only then sell.

Non-compliance carries suspension of business or revocation of the licence. Typing a date of birth does not meet this — document-based age proof and identity matching are two separate demands. Advertising is constrained too: website tobacco advertising is to be avoided except where targeting only persons aged 20 and over is technically possible (Ministry of Finance notification, March 2004).

The age of majority moved; the drinking and smoking age didn't

Japan lowered the age of majority to 18 on April 1, 2022, but the Ministry of Justice Q&A (Q4) states that the alcohol and tobacco limits remain 20. Do not leave one of these apps at an 18 threshold.

Eleven apps compared

Live App Store listings as of September 1, 2026. "BFS" is the Built for Shopify badge.

App	Method	Cheapest paid plan	Free plan	Japanese UI	BFS	Rating / reviews	Per-product targeting	Checkout side
Blockify Age Verification 18+	Date of birth	$3.99/mo	Yes	No	Yes	4.9 / 298	Plus plan only	Plus $16.99
AVP ‑ Age Verification Popup	Date of birth / checkbox	$3.99/mo	Yes	No	Yes	4.7 / 142	From $3.99	Plus $16.99
NA Age Verification	Yes/no, date of birth, checkbox	$3.95/mo	Yes (all three)	No	Yes	4.9 / 87	Product tags	Pro $8.95 (vendor says Plus)
Age Check Age Verification Ace	Date of birth / yes-no	$3.99/mo	No	No	No	5.0 / 24	Page restriction only	None
Lifter Age Check	Date of birth / yes-no	$4.99/mo	No	No	Yes	5.0 / 7	Per page	None
Zo Age Verification	Yes/no	Free	Yes	No	No	0 / 0	Not listed	None
Age Verification Supporter — 年齢確認サポーター	Age entry (cart)	$9.00/mo	No	Yes	No	5.0 / 2	Yes	Not listed
UR:DOB Age Verification	Date of birth	$6.99/mo	No	Yes (+19 languages)	No	0 / 0	Yes	Not listed
CC Age Verification	Age / date of birth / yes-no	$3.99/mo	No	Yes	No	0 / 0	Yes	Not listed
iDenfy ID Verification	ID document + face match	Listed free	Yes	No	No	5.0 / 1	Not listed	Pre/post triggers
Verificatorly: Check Age (POS)	ID scan	$0.99/mo	No	No	No	0 / 0	Not listed	POS only

Localization and track record are in direct tension. Only three of these 11 carry a Japanese admin UI, all three Japan-built; none has a Built for Shopify badge, and the highest review count among them is two. The three established international options all carry Built for Shopify and have 87 to 298 reviews, and none has a Japanese UI. Any market outside an app's home language should expect a version of this trade-off.

In-checkout verification is billed twice. Blockify and AVP both expose a "SHOPIFY PLUS $16.99/mo" tier explicitly restricted to Plus stores. NA Age Verification's listing states no Plus requirement, but its developer's blog describes in-checkout verification as being for Shopify Plus, and the app side additionally requires Pro at $8.95/mo.

Two things could not be established for any app here. None of the 11 listings mentions bots, crawlers, Googlebot, or SEO impact, so whether an age gate blocks search engine crawling cannot be determined from public information. And none says anything about what remains after uninstall.

App notes

Blockify Age Verification 18+

Live since 2017, with the largest review base in the category. The free plan covers one popup; BASIC $3.99/mo adds detailed appearance settings and one translation language; PREMIUM $8.99/mo adds unlimited popups and checkout validation (Age Checker); SHOPIFY PLUS $16.99/mo adds age verification inside checkout. The trial is a short 3 days.

Its data access includes edit permission for Shopify Functions cart and checkout validations — one of the few apps here with a foundation for server-side validation. Languages: English, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Hindi. No Japanese.

AVP ‑ Age Verification Popup

Pricing mirrors Blockify (free / $3.99 / $8.99 / $16.99) with one meaningful difference: targeting specific pages, collections, and products starts at BASIC $3.99/mo, where Blockify's equivalent Specific Target sits on the Plus tier.

It is also the only app in this set explicitly documenting geolocation targeting by country, it reports verified versus unverified sessions, and it likewise requests Functions validation permissions. Its languages field lists English only — a translatable popup and a Japanese admin UI are different things, and listings blur them.

NA Age Verification

From Northern Apps. The free plan includes all three prompt styles. Plus $3.95/mo adds targeting to specific pages and appearance customization. Pro $8.95/mo adds a popup on checkout, disabling the checkout button until verification completes, recording age verification status into the order note, and passing birthdays to Klaviyo. Trial is 7 days.

Order-level recording suits any regime expecting a retained record, but the developer's blog states in-checkout verification is for Shopify Plus, uses a Checkout UI Extension, and requires Pro. Per-product targeting runs through product tags. This listing displays no data access section at all, so Functions permissions cannot be confirmed and server-side enforcement cannot be asserted. English-only UI.

Age Verification Supporter — 年齢確認サポーター (Japan-built)

Built by Netyear Group Corporation (Chuo-ku, Tokyo). Published 2022; both of its two reviews came from Japanese stores in 2022, making it the only Japan-built app here with any reviews. Basic is $9/mo with a 14-day trial. Japanese blog posts describing this app as free are out of date; the current listing is $9/mo with no free plan.

The notable design decision is that verification appears on the cart page, closer to the "screen relating to the application" the NTA notice describes than an entrance popup is — an observation about placement, not legal sufficiency. It also adds an age field automatically at account registration and stores the result as a customer tag, and supports different thresholds per product. Japanese only, and the listing names no integrated systems, so checkout and POS coverage could not be confirmed.

UR:DOB Age Verification (Japan-built)

Built by UnReact Inc. (Fukuoka). $6.99/mo or $69.99/year (17% off), 7-day trial. It supports 20 languages including Japanese — the only Japan-built option here usable cross-border. It collects a date of birth, blocks purchase if the field is empty or the age is below threshold, supports per-product show/hide, and saves the entered date of birth to a product property on the order line. Published January 2025; its data access includes no Functions permissions, making it likely that "blocks purchase" is not a server-side rejection.

The same developer publishes checkbox-style and popup-style age verification apps, and the popup one's official guide documents a re-prompt interval setting (30 days, for example) — one of very few concrete cookie re-verification periods found anywhere in this research. Those sibling listings may have been renamed, though, and their official names as of September 1, 2026 could not be confirmed.

CC Age Verification (Japan-built)

Built by Capital Castle (Miyazaki Prefecture). At $3.99/mo the cheapest Japan-built option here, with a 7-day trial. Choose among three methods — age entry, date of birth, yes/no — set requirements per product, and include the confirmed age in the order information. It supports English and Japanese, and the listing advertises Japan-built reliability and Japanese-language support.

Published September 2023. The listing says verification is not shown again once completed, but whether that interval is configurable could not be confirmed. On paper the best-balanced Japan-built candidate — with no track record to evaluate.

iDenfy ID Verification

Built by iDenfy in Lithuania, categorized under Fraud rather than Legal. The only app of the 11 clearly offering ID document upload plus selfie-based identity verification (KYC), with deepfake and forged-document detection and KYC-compliant audit logs. Triggers fire before or after checkout, and it integrates with the customer accounts extension. For any regime demanding document-based age proof plus identity matching — the tobacco licence condition above — this is the closest feature-level match here.

The caveats are substantial. The App Store price reads "Free," but whether iDenfy's own underlying KYC service carries a separate usage fee is not stated on the listing. English-only UI, one review, no Built for Shopify badge. Support for Japanese driver's licences or My Number cards could not be confirmed. And neither Shopify nor iDenfy warrants that the app satisfies any regulator's licence conditions.

POS age verification

The only POS-oriented age verification app confirmed on the App Store is Verificatorly: Check Age (POS), $0.99/mo with a 30-day trial. Its listing states it can "scan any United States driver's license" — the read target is US licences, and no support for Japanese ID documents is described. No help center documentation for a native Shopify POS age verification feature could be found either, so in-person verification in Japan today means visual inspection and internal policy.

Listings to be careful with

AgeX - Age Verification Popup (CMG INFOTECH PVT LTD) returns "This app is not currently available on the Shopify App Store." as of September 1, 2026, with no pricing, rating, or language information left — yet it still appears in third-party comparison articles.

Zo Age Verification (Zo Apps, published February 2025) is listed as "Free" with no pricing plans described at all, data access limited to theme and page editing, and a yes/no method. Fine for experimentation; not enough evidence for a production store carrying legal obligations.

Before you install

• Will you use the Shop sales channel? Alcohol and tobacco are prohibited there.
• Have you asked Shopify about Shopify Payments eligibility? Sources contradict each other.
• Do you publish the legally required commercial disclosure page for your market?
• Which category are you in? Alcohol, tobacco, and everything else differ.
• Can the app place the check where your jurisdiction requires it, not just at the entrance?
• Can the result be recorded against the order or the customer record?
• Is the threshold your market's actual limit, not the app's default?
• Do you truly need the check inside checkout? Budget for Plus plus the app's top tier.
• Have you checked admin UI language and support language separately?
• Is the review count on your shortlist enough to be evidence?
• Have you consulted the regulator that licenses your category?

Bottom line

Four decisions, in order.

First, the merchandise layer. Shop channel, Managed Markets, and Shopify Payments restrictions are settled before any app is installed.

Second, your jurisdiction's actual requirement. The entrance popup this category sells is a UX convention; the legal requirement is usually a placement, a record, or a document check it does not deliver.

Third, your Shopify plan. On non-Plus, collect age on the cart or product page and write it to the order. Even on Plus, block_progress degrades to allow unless a merchant permits it — the only mechanism Shopify describes as impossible for customers to bypass is Cart and Checkout Validation Functions.

Fourth, localization versus track record. These currently pull against each other, and you have to pick.

If you sell tobacco, off-the-shelf apps are unlikely to satisfy licence conditions on their own. Evaluate KYC-grade verification or in-person sale, and talk to your regulator first.

Pricing and review counts reflect the App Store as of September 1, 2026. Regulatory statements summarize published government material and are not legal advice.