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How to Translate WooCommerce Stores with WPML 

Kathy
Updated
November 11, 2025

With WCML from WPML, you can translate every part of your WooCommerce store including products, categories, cart, checkout, emails, reviews and more.

Each section in this guide explains how to use WPML Multilingual & Multicurrency for WooCommerce (WCML) to translate a specific part of your WooCommerce store.

Watch the video below for an overview of how to translate WooCommerce.

Install and Set Up the Required Plugins

To translate WooCommerce with WPML, install and activate:

See details on how to install WPML.

After installing and activating these plugins, go to WPML → Setup and WooCommerce → WCML to complete our quick setup wizards.

The WCML setup wizard will help you:

  • Create store pages in all available languages
  • Choose which product attributes to translate
  • Optionally add multiple currencies
WCML setup wizard
WCML setup wizard

Translate WooCommerce Products and Product Variations

To translate WooCommerce products:

  1. Go to WPML → Translation Dashboard.
  2. In the Products section, select the products you want to translate.
Selecting products for translation in the Translation Dashboard

When you send a product for translation, WPML also includes:

  • Product variations
  • Attribute terms, categories, and tags linked to the product
  • Image text such as captions, titles, and descriptions

Once you select the products you want to translate, choose your translation method.

Most site owners use PTC (Private Translation Cloud) to translate products. Its context-aware AI translations are ready in minutes and come with a quality guarantee. You’ll also see the exact cost before confirming. In the example below, translating six products into two languages costs a bit over €3.

Cost summary in the WPML Translation Dashboard
Choosing how to translate products in the Translation Dashboard

Translate WooCommerce Cart and Checkout Pages

Many themes already include translations for the WooCommerce Cart and Checkout pages.
During setup, WCML automatically creates translations for:

  • Cart and Checkout pages provided by your theme, if the theme includes translations
  • Cart and Checkout pages created with WooCommerce shortcodes

If your theme or WooCommerce doesn’t include translations for the Cart and Checkout pages into your site’s languages, you need to translate them yourself.

 To do this:

  1. Go to WPML → Translation Dashboard.
  2. Scroll to Other texts (Strings).
  3. In the All domains dropdown, select your theme or plugin domain.
  4. Choose the strings you want to translate and send them for translation.
Translating cart and checkout page strings
Sending strings from the Checkout page for translation via Translation Dashboard

For translated Cart and Checkout pages, you can also control what happens to items already in the cart when users switch languages or currencies.

Translating WooCommerce Cart and Checkout Blocks

WooCommerce provides translations for the new block-based Cart and Checkout pages.

Usually, these translations are included with WooCommerce and cover all text for the most popular languages.

However, in some less common languages, certain strings may appear untranslated because WooCommerce’s own translations are incomplete.

At this time, WPML can’t translate these block-based Cart and Checkout texts, but we’re adding full support for this in an upcoming release.

See our available workaround to learn how to temporarily solve this issue.

Translate Categories, Attributes, Shipping Classes, and Other Taxonomies

When you translate a product, WCML also translates its related taxonomies. This includes product attributes, shipping classes, categories, tags, and custom taxonomies. 

To see how this works, open the product’s translation in the Advanced Translation Editor. You can get there by viewing the translated product on the front-end and selecting Edit Translation. You’ll see all related taxonomies appear for translation alongside the product content.

All taxonomies linked to the product appear in the Advanced Translation Editor

To translate attributes, shipping classes, and other taxonomies manually:

  1. Go to WPML → Taxonomy Translation.
  2. Choose the taxonomy from the dropdown menu. 
  3. Click the plus icon to enter the translations for your terms.
Manually translating taxonomy terms from the Taxonomy Translation screen

Translate WooCommerce Emails

WooCommerce includes built-in translations for its default emails. WPML automatically sends order-related emails in each customer’s language.

You only need to translate:

  • Custom-coded emails you’ve added yourself
  • Default WooCommerce emails that you’ve customized

How to Translate Customized Default Emails

If you changed default email text in WooCommerce → Settings → Emails, translate your updates in WPML.

  1. Go to WPML → Translation Dashboard → Other texts (Strings).
  2. Search for your customized text and select it.
Selecting WooCommerce email text for translation in Other texts (Strings)
Selecting WooCommerce email text for translation in Other texts (Strings)
  1. Choose a translation method and translate your content.

How to Translate Default Email Text Not Shown in WooCommerce Settings

Some WooCommerce emails include text that isn’t visible or editable in the WooCommerce settings.

To translate these strings:

  1. Go to WPML → Theme and plugins localization and scan WooCommerce for strings.
  2. After scanning finishes, go to WPML → String Translation.
  3. Select the woocommerce text domain.
  4. Search for the string and click the pencil icon to add or edit the translation.
Editing the translation for default WooCommerce email text
Editing the translation for default WooCommerce email text

How to Translate Custom-Coded Email Templates

If you’ve customized or created your own PHP email templates, make sure each translatable string is wrapped in a gettext function so WPML can detect it:

<p><?php _e( 'CUSTOM TEXT', 'woocommerce' ); ?></p>

To translate the custom-coded email text:

  1. Go to WPML → Theme and plugins localization and scan your theme.
  2. Open WPML → Translation Dashboard and scroll to Other texts (Strings).
  3. Search for your custom-coded email text.
  4. Select a translation method and translate your content.

Translate WooCommerce Product Reviews

By default, WCML only shows reviews written in the language the visitor is viewing. You can change this behavior in two ways:

  • Show all reviews in all languages
  • Translate product reviews so each language displays its own version

Before using either option, you need to enable a setting that makes all reviews visible across languages.

Step 1: Enable Reviews to Display in All Languages

  1. Go to WooCommerce → WCML → Settings.
  2. In the Product reviews section, check Show reviews in all languages.
Enabling the option to show product reviews in all languages
Enabling the option to show reviews in all languages

If you only want to show all reviews (without translating them), you don’t need to do anything else.

Step 2: Translate Product Reviews

If you want reviews to appear translated on product pages, continue with these steps:

  1. Go to WPML → Translation Dashboard.
  2. Scroll to the Other texts (Strings) section.
  3. Filter by the wcml-reviews text domain.
  4. Select the product reviews you want to translate.
Selecting product reviews to translate in Other texts (Strings)
Selecting product reviews to translate in Other texts (Strings)
  1. Choose a translation method and send them for translation.

Translated reviews appear on the front-end with a (translated) label. 

Translated product reviews on the front-end
Translated product reviews on the front-end

Reviews that aren’t translated will appear in their source language on all translated product pages.

 Don’t see all product reviews available for translation?

By default, WPML only registers strings from new product reviews.
If older reviews aren’t available for translation, go to WooCommerce → WCML → Status. Then, click Troubleshooting, check Register product reviews for translations and click Start. You can then translate them from the Translation Dashboard.

Translate Missing WooCommerce Plugin Strings and Text

The WooCommerce plugin includes translations into many languages, but some translations are missing in less-popular languages.

You can use WPML to translate missing or untranslated strings from the WooCommerce plugin.

  1. Visit the translated page with the untranslated text on the front end. WPML automatically detects and registers those strings for translation.
Viewing the page with the untranslated text on the frontend
Viewing a translated page with untranslated text on the front-end
  1. Go to WPML → Translation Dashboard and scroll to the Other text (Strings) section.
  2. Search for the text and select it.
Searching for, and selecting the untranslated text in Other texts (Strings)
Searching for, and selecting the untranslated text in Other texts (Strings)
  1. Choose a translation method and translate the strings.

Still can’t find specific strings? See how to register strings for translation in WPML.

Translate WooCommerce Extensions

WooCommerce extensions add extra features to your store, such as subscriptions, bookings, and product add-ons.
WCML is compatible with many of these extensions, allowing you to translate their content.

See our dedicated guides for detailed steps:

WooCommerce Bookings
WooCommerce Subscriptions
WooCommerce Tab Manager
WooCommerce Product Add-Ons
WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping

Developer Resources

If you’re a developer, WCML includes tools to help you add multilingual support to WooCommerce sites, themes, and plugins.

Developer Resources for Translating WooCommerce Sites

If you build WooCommerce plugins or integrations, you can use hooks or the REST API to add multilingual support to your code.

WCML Hooks Reference

Lists all hooks available for WCML.

Use WordPress REST API with WPML and WooCommerce

Explains how to manage translated WooCommerce content through the REST API.

Developer Resources for Translating WooCommerce Plugins and Themes

If you develop WooCommerce add-on plugins or themes, use Private Translation Cloud (PTC)  to include translations with your product.

PTC is a translation system that translates with human-quality AI and lets you choose how to receive translations:

  • Download translations manually
  • Get merge requests via your repository
  • Automate updates through your CI/CD pipeline

See how to translate WordPress themes and plugins with PTC.

Explore More WCML Features

WCML does more than translate your store.
It also includes powerful multicurrency features that let you sell in different currencies and control how prices display across languages.

Learn more on the main WCML page or see the multicurrency guide.

Ready to translate your WooCommerce store?

Get WPML today. It comes with WCML and includes translation credits, so you can start translating your store with AI at no additional cost.

Buy WPML