Running a giveaway in more than one country

Opening a giveaway to everyone feels like the generous choice and like a way to get more entries. It is also a promise with several parts you may not have intended to make. This post is about which parts, and how to decide eligibility on purpose.

What "worldwide" commits you to

• Shipping anywhere, at a cost you have not calculated and with a delivery time you cannot promise
• Customs and import duty — which, unless you say otherwise, the winner discovers on their doorstep
• Local promotion rules in the winner's country, which are not yours
• Rules in a language the entrant can read, if you want them to be meaningful
• A prize that works there — a voucher, a gift card or a service restricted to one market is not a prize in another

None of these is a reason not to run an international giveaway. They are the things to decide before publishing, instead of discovering them with a winner waiting.

Narrow deliberately, and say so

The usable approach is to pick the smallest set that matches your actual market and write it in the rules: a list of countries, a region, or a single country. "Open to residents of the EU and the UK" is clearer than "worldwide" and almost always closer to the truth of what you can deliver.

Doing this before the draw is the point. Discovering a geographic limit after the result lands on someone in a country you cannot ship to leaves you choosing between eating the cost and disqualifying a winner in public.

Why "void where prohibited" is not a substitute

That phrase appears in almost every set of rules, and it is worth having. What it is not is a plan. It says the promotion does not apply where local law forbids it; it does not tell you where that is, and it does not help the entrant work out whether they are eligible.

Treat it as a backstop under an explicit list, not as the list itself.

Prizes that do not travel

Some prizes are structurally local. A gift card for a retailer that exists in one country. A subscription restricted by region. Anything with an age restriction that differs across borders. A physical item with a plug, a voltage or a language on the packaging.

For an international audience, the prizes that work tend to be digital, or your own product shipped from one place with the cost calculated, or cash equivalent where that is permitted. If the prize is local, the giveaway should be too — and that is a perfectly good giveaway.

Taxes are the winner's surprise, so warn them

In some countries a prize above a certain value is taxable income for the winner, and the thresholds and the responsible party vary. Do not quote a figure from a blog post, including this one: the numbers change and they differ by country.

What you can do is say, in the rules, that the winner is responsible for any taxes or import charges that apply where they live. That is one sentence, and it prevents the version of this conversation that happens after someone has already won.

Language, and what it means for the rules

If you run the giveaway in English and the audience is not English-speaking, the rules are decorative. You do not need a full translation of everything — but the eligibility, the closing time and the claim deadline are the three that have to be understood, because they are the three that disqualify people.

The draw is the part that does not change

One thing is simpler across borders than everything else: a random draw does not care where entrants live. What matters is that the entry list was complete and that the result can be checked afterwards — and a record published at a public address works the same way in every country, which is more than can be said for the shipping.

Rafflecopter draws from the full comment list and publishes a verifiable record: the hash of the entry list before the reveal, and the seed afterwards. Anyone, anywhere, can re-run it and get the same winner.