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Customer matched zone “Locations not covered by your other zones” (WooCommerce)

Table of Contents

Overview

This message appears in WooCommerce logs or debug messages when a customer’s shipping address does not match any of your defined shipping zones.
WooCommerce automatically assigns such orders to a fallback zone called:

“Locations not covered by your other zones”

This is a built-in WooCommerce behavior, not an Octolize plugin error.

Root Cause

When WooCommerce calculates shipping, it checks the customer’s address (country, state, postcode, etc.) against your configured Shipping Zones under
WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping → Shipping zones.

If the customer’s location doesn’t fit into any of these defined zones, WooCommerce automatically uses the default fallback zone — “Locations not covered by your other zones”.

Typical reasons:

  • The customer’s country, state, or postcode is not included in any existing zone.
  • You have incomplete or overlapping zones, so WooCommerce cannot determine a match.
  • You are using Octolize Shipping Rates (or another custom shipping plugin) that only applies rates to certain zones, and the fallback zone has no rates assigned.

Impact

  • The customer may not see any shipping rates at checkout.
  • Debug logs or Octolize logs will show: “Customer matched zone ‘Locations not covered by your other zones’”
  • Shipping rate rules from Octolize may not be applied.

How to Fix the Issue

Step 1. Check your WooCommerce Shipping Zones

  1. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping → Shipping zones.
  2. Review the list of your zones and their regions.
  3. Make sure all countries or regions you want to ship to are covered by a specific zone.
  4. Add new zones if needed:
    • Click “Add shipping zone”.
    • Enter a Zone name (e.g. “Europe” or “United States”).
    • Select the regions or postcodes included.
    • Add your shipping methods (Flat rate, Free shipping, or Octolize rates).
  5. Save changes.

💡 WooCommerce uses the first matching zone in order. Make sure your zones do not overlap.

Step 2. Add rates for the fallback zone (optional)

If you intentionally want to support customers not covered by other zones:

  1. Find the default fallback zone — “Locations not covered by your other zones.”
  2. Click “Edit”.
  3. Add a shipping method (e.g. Flat rate or Octolize Rates).
  4. Set the price or rule you want to apply to all unmatched locations.
  5. Save.

⚠️ If this zone has no shipping methods, customers from unmatched locations won’t see any shipping options.

Step 3. Check your Octolize configuration

If you use Octolize Shipping Rates, Octolize Conditional Shipping Methods, or Octolize Shipping Packages:

  1. Go to WooCommerce → Shipping Zones → [Your Zone].
  2. Make sure the Octolize method is enabled and assigned to the correct zone.
  3. In the Octolize rule editor:
    • Confirm that all desired countries, regions, or postcodes are included.
    • Check that the rule is active and published.

If your customer address matches a location not covered by any of these rules, WooCommerce will still fall back to the “Locations not covered…” zone.

Step 4. Test the configuration

  1. Add a product to the cart.
  2. Go to Cart → Calculate shipping or Checkout.
  3. Enter an address from a region you expect to be matched.
  4. Check if the correct rates are displayed.
  5. Try entering an address outside of all zones — it should now match the fallback zone (or show a clear “No shipping options available” message if you didn’t define rates for it).

Additional Notes

  • The fallback zone (“Locations not covered by your other zones”) always exists in WooCommerce by default.
  • It cannot be deleted, but you can disable its shipping methods if you don’t want to ship outside your main regions.
  • Octolize plugins only receive the zone ID returned by WooCommerce. If WooCommerce assigns the fallback zone, no Octolize rates will apply unless you explicitly add them there.

When to Contact Support

If:

  • You’ve confirmed all zones and rules are correct,
  • But the message still appears for valid customer addresses,

then contact Octolize Support for further assistance.

Support link:
👉 https://octolize.com/support/

Please include in your message:

  • A screenshot of your Shipping Zones list.
  • The customer address that triggered the message.
  • The Octolize method and rules configuration.
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