How to Customize WooCommerce Checkout Fields

The default WooCommerce checkout asks every customer for the same set of fields: first and last name, company, country, street address, apartment, city, state, postcode, phone, and email. If you sell digital downloads, ship only within one city, or need extra details such as a delivery date or gift message, that one-size-fits-all form works against you. Customizing your WooCommerce checkout fields lets you remove what you don’t need, add what you do, and make the form faster to complete.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to edit WooCommerce checkout fields with a plugin or with code, which fields are safe to remove, how to add custom fields, and how to avoid the mistakes that break checkout.

Why Customize the WooCommerce Checkout Form?

Every field you ask a customer to fill in is a small cost. Checkout usability research from the Baymard Institute has found that many ecommerce checkouts show more form fields than necessary, and that a typical checkout can be made substantially shorter without losing any information the store actually needs.

Customizing checkout fields helps you:

Shorten the form by removing fields such as Company or Address line 2 that most customers skip.
Collect business-specific information such as delivery instructions, a VAT number, a preferred delivery date, or a gift note.
Fit your products: a store selling only digital products doesn’t need a shipping address at all.
Improve the order of fields so the form follows the way customers think about their address and contact details.

Which Checkout Fields Can You Safely Remove?

Before removing anything, check what your payment gateway, shipping plugins, tax setup, and invoicing tools depend on. As a rule of thumb:

Field	Usually safe to remove?	Notes
Company name	Yes, for B2C stores	Keep it for B2B stores that issue invoices
Address line 2	Often	Keep it if many customers live in apartments
Phone	Sometimes	Couriers often need it; consider making it optional
Billing address (digital products)	Partly	Some gateways need country and postcode for fraud checks
Email	No	Required for order confirmations and account creation
Country	No	Needed for tax and shipping calculations

Making a field optional is often safer than removing it completely. The customer can skip it, but tools that expect it won’t break.

How to Edit WooCommerce Checkout Fields With a Plugin

A checkout field editor plugin gives you a visual interface for adding, removing, reordering, and relabelling fields without touching code.

Step 1: Install a Checkout Field Editor

Checkout Field Editor from Simpli Plugin is a free plugin for exactly this. It lets you collect specialized details such as delivery notes, remove unnecessary billing fields, and reorder the default input sequence, so your checkout captures only the data your business needs.

Download the plugin ZIP from its product page.
Go to Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin.
Upload the file, click Install Now, then Activate Plugin.

Step 2: Remove or Disable Unnecessary Fields

Open the plugin’s settings and review the billing, shipping, and additional fields. Disable the ones your store doesn’t need, starting with the safest candidates from the table above, such as Company name.

Step 3: Add Custom Fields

Add only the fields you’ll actually use when fulfilling the order. Useful examples include:

Delivery instructions, such as a gate code or a preferred drop-off spot.
A preferred delivery date or time slot.
A gift message.
A VAT or tax registration number for business customers.

Give each field a clear label and a short placeholder example, and only mark it required if you genuinely can’t fulfill the order without it.

Step 4: Reorder and Relabel Fields

Put email near the top so you can capture it early for order updates, group address fields in the order customers expect, and rename confusing labels. “Street address” is clearer than “Address line 1.”

Step 5: Show Fields Only When They’re Needed

Some fields only make sense in certain situations, for example a VAT number field that appears only when the customer enters a company name, or delivery instructions that appear only for local delivery. Simpli’s free Conditional Checkout Fields plugin is designed for this kind of show-and-hide logic, so most customers see a shorter form.

Need checkout logic that goes beyond adding and removing fields, such as validating custom data against your systems or sending it to a CRM or ERP? Simpli Plugin’s team builds custom WooCommerce checkout extensions.

Discuss Your Checkout →

How to Edit WooCommerce Checkout Fields With Code

Developers can change checkout fields with the woocommerce_checkout_fields filter. This example removes the company field and makes the phone field optional:

add_filter( 'woocommerce_checkout_fields', function ( $fields ) {
    unset( $fields['billing']['billing_company'] );
    $fields['billing']['billing_phone']['required'] = false;
    return $fields;
} );

Add snippets like this through a small custom plugin or a child theme, never in a parent theme that updates will overwrite. WooCommerce’s guide to customizing checkout fields using actions and filters covers adding new fields and saving their values to the order.

A Note on the Block-Based Checkout

Newer WooCommerce stores often use the block-based Checkout page instead of the classic [woocommerce_checkout] shortcode. The woocommerce_checkout_fields filter applies to the classic checkout, while the block checkout uses a different API for additional fields. Check which checkout your store uses by editing the Checkout page: if you see a Checkout block, you’re on the block version. Confirm that any plugin or snippet you choose supports it.

Checkout Field Best Practices

Ask only for what you use. If no one reads a field when packing orders, remove it.
Prefer optional over removed for fields that other tools might need.
Use the right input types so mobile devices show a number keypad for phone numbers and an email keyboard for email addresses.
Keep labels visible. Placeholder text alone disappears once the customer starts typing.
Explain why you need sensitive information, for example “We’ll only call if there’s a delivery problem.”

Common Problems and How to Fix Them

Changes Don’t Appear on the Checkout Page

Your store may be using the block checkout while the plugin or snippet targets the classic checkout. Check which checkout you’re on, then clear any page cache.

Payments Fail After Removing Fields

Some gateways require billing details such as the postcode or country for fraud checks. Restore the field, or make it optional instead of removing it, and run a test payment.

Custom Field Data Doesn’t Appear in Orders

The field is displayed but not saved. With a plugin, check the setting that shows the field in the order admin and emails. With custom code, make sure you save the value to the order’s meta data when the order is created.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I remove the billing address for digital products?

Largely yes, but keep the fields your payment gateway needs, often country and postcode. Test a real payment after making changes.

Will custom checkout fields appear in order emails?

Only if the plugin or code adds them. Most checkout field editors include an option to show custom fields in order emails and in the admin order screen.

Do checkout field changes affect existing orders?

No. Changes apply to new orders. Existing orders keep the information they were placed with.

Should I use a plugin or code?

A plugin is easier to manage if you or your team will adjust fields over time. Code is a good choice for a developer-managed store with a small, fixed set of changes.

Build a Checkout That Fits Your Store

The default WooCommerce checkout is a reasonable starting point, but it isn’t built around your business. Removing unused fields, adding the details you need, and showing fields only when they apply gives customers a faster, clearer form.

Download Checkout Field Editor and Conditional Checkout Fields for free, and browse the full Simpli Plugin library. If your checkout needs custom logic or integrations, our developers can build them.

Request a Custom Build →