- Post
TikTok Shop’s 8 New European Markets: How to Launch Without Local Entities
TikTok Shop is expanding into eight new European markets: Poland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Austria, Greece, and Hungary. For brands building a social commerce strategy, this is one of the most significant openings in recent memory: a wave of new, high-intent audiences becoming reachable through one of the fastest-growing commerce channels in the world.
But here’s the part most brands underestimate: opening a TikTok Shop is the easy part. The hard part is everything underneath it — the legal, tax, payment, and compliance infrastructure each market quietly requires. And that’s exactly where expansion plans stall.
This article explains what the expansion means, why market access takes more than a storefront, and how brands can launch across all eight new markets, plus the seven ExpandNow already supports, through a single commercial relationship, without setting up local entities in each country.
TikTok Shop is launching in 8 new European markets
The eight newly available markets are:
- Poland 🇵🇱
- the Netherlands 🇳🇱
- Belgium 🇧🇪
- Austria 🇦🇹
- Portugal 🇵🇹
- the Czech Republic 🇨🇿
- Greece 🇬🇷
- Hungary 🇭🇺
Combined with the markets ExpandNow already supports — the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and the United States, brands now have a clear path to up to 15 TikTok Shop markets.
That’s the headline opportunity. The strategic question is how to capture it without rebuilding your operation country by country.
A major social commerce opportunity, but opening a shop is the easy part
It’s tempting to treat a new market launch as a marketplace setup task: create the shop, list the products, go live. In practice, market access requires far more than that.
Each new market carries its own requirements around who is legally allowed to sell, how tax and VAT are handled, how payments are collected, and how payouts reach you. Multiply that across eight new markets, each with its own rules, registrations, and operational obligations, and the “opportunity” starts to look like a multi-year infrastructure project before a single product sells.
This is the gap between being able to open a shop and being able to operate and scale across markets. Closing that gap is what separates brands that expand quickly from brands that get stuck in setup.
Do brands need a local entity to sell on TikTok Shop in Europe?
This is the single biggest question international brands face, and the answer determines how fast you can move.
The traditional, market-by-market path
The conventional route to selling on TikTok Shop in a new country usually means setting up a local company, registering for VAT and local tax, opening a local bank account, completing local seller setup, and building the operational infrastructure to keep all of it compliant. Then you repeat the entire process for the next market. And the next.
Done this way, a multi-market launch can take six to twelve months, and that’s before any growth work begins.
The local entity alternative: Merchant of Record / Seller of Record
There is a faster path. With a Merchant of Record (MoR) / Seller of Record (SoR) model, brands can sell across TikTok Shop markets without setting up a local entity in each one. Instead of building local legal, tax, payment, and compliance infrastructure market by market, brands access it through a single partner that already has it in place.
This is the difference between a local entity alternative that lets you launch in weeks, and a market-by-market build that takes the better part of a year.
Merchant of Record and Seller of Record: the faster path to TikTok Shop expansion
A Merchant of Record / Seller of Record model is not a feature bolted onto a marketplace tool. It’s the critical infrastructure that makes cross-border TikTok Shop expansion possible at all.
ExpandNow acts as the official seller of record on TikTok Shop and handles the commercial, tax, compliance, payment, payout, reporting, and operational complexity on the brand’s behalf. That means the brand doesn’t need a local company, local VAT registration, or local seller infrastructure in every target market to go live and stay compliant.
The result is speed. With this model, brands can go live in around two weeks, compared with the six to twelve months a do-it-yourself, market-by-market build typically takes.
What ExpandNow handles as your infrastructure partner
ExpandNow’s global infrastructure covers:
- Merchant of Record (MoR): acting as the legal seller so you don’t need local entities
- Tax & compliance management: VAT, tax, and marketplace compliance handled across markets
- Multi-currency payouts: getting you paid across countries and currencies
- Consolidated financial reporting: your numbers across all markets in one place
- 24/7 access to the ExpandNow platform and P&L: real-time visibility into performance
- Importer of Record support where needed
This is the layer that removes the operational barriers to international expansion, so a US brand can sell on TikTok Shop UK and EU, a UK brand can reach the EU and US, and an EU brand can sell into the UK and US, all through one commercial relationship.
Infrastructure gets you live. Growth execution is what makes you succeed.
Going live in a market is the starting line, not the finish. Performing in a market takes store management, agency support, affiliate and creator programs, live shopping, content production, category and trade insights, and the 3PLs and logistics partners that move physical goods reliably across borders.
A brand that solves only the infrastructure problem can find itself live but underpowered. A brand that solves only the growth problem can find itself executing well in a market it isn’t compliantly set up to operate in. Successful expansion needs both, which is why the most effective model combines infrastructure with a network of specialists for every stage of growth.
ExpandNow: the trusted TikTok Shop infrastructure and growth ecosystem partner
As a TikTok Shop Partner, ExpandNow sits inside the TikTok Shop ecosystem rather than alongside it, combining recognised partner standing with the infrastructure brands need to sell across markets. That matters when you’re entering eight new countries at once: you want a partner that operates natively within TikTok Shop’s commercial and operational framework, not a generic cross-border tool retrofitted to it.
ExpandNow combines global Merchant of Record infrastructure with a curated network of TikTok Shop specialists across Europe, the UK, and the US. One partner. Best-in-class specialists.
Global infrastructure, powered by ExpandNow
ExpandNow provides the foundation: MoR/SoR, tax and compliance, multi-currency payouts, consolidated reporting, 24/7 platform and P&L access, and Importer of Record where required, so brands can launch and operate across markets without building any of it themselves.
A curated growth ecosystem of trusted partners
On top of that infrastructure, ExpandNow connects brands with carefully selected specialists for every stage of growth: store management teams, TikTok Shop agencies, affiliate and creator program specialists, live shopping experts, content production partners, and category and trade insight specialists. Brands get access to specialist expertise with the flexibility to scale services as the business grows.
Why this model lowers risk
Combining infrastructure with a curated ecosystem gives brands:
- Flexibility to work with specialist partners
- Access to local market expertise
- Freedom to scale services as needed
- Reduced dependency on any single provider
- A future-proof expansion strategy
The outcome: lower risk, and the ability to scale without complexity.
Proven results
The model isn’t theoretical. Meroda Cosmetics achieved £500K GMV in its first 100 days on TikTok Shop UK (read full case study). Brands are operating across multiple TikTok Shop markets through ExpandNow today. And the speed advantage is real: brands go live in around two weeks, versus the six to twelve months a DIY approach typically requires.
Launch and scale across 15 TikTok Shop markets through one partner
TikTok Shop’s expansion into eight new European markets opens a major social commerce opportunity. The brands that capture it fastest will be the ones that don’t try to rebuild their legal, tax, payment, and compliance infrastructure country by country.
ExpandNow gives brands a single commercial relationship that spans up to 15 TikTok Shop markets — without local entities, local tax registrations, or market-by-market operational complexity, backed by a curated ecosystem of specialists to drive growth in every one.
Whether you need Merchant of Record services, store management support, or access to a complete TikTok Shop growth ecosystem, ExpandNow can help.
Have questions about expanding into TikTok Shop markets? Find the answers you need in our TikTok Shop Guide.
