WooCommerce: Get Variation IDs By Product Category or Tag

We can get products belonging to a product category or product tag very easily. What’s much more difficult is getting single variations based on a product category or product tag, as variations… don’t have a category or tag, which belong to its “parent” variable product instead.

In this post, we will define a function that you can reuse in your custom code whenever you need to get all variation IDs based on a given product category or product tag. You can then loop through the array and return whatever info you need. Enjoy!

PHP Snippet: Retrieve List of Variations By Product Category or Tag

/**
 * @snippet       Get Variation IDs By Taxonomy Term
 * @how-to        Get CustomizeWoo.com FREE
 * @author        Rodolfo Melogli
 * @compatible    WooCommerce 7
 * @donate $9     https://businessbloomer.com/bloomer-armada/
 */

function get_variations_from_term( $term, $taxonomy, $type ) {
    global $wpdb;
    $ids = $wpdb->get_col( "
        SELECT DISTINCT p.ID
        FROM {$wpdb->prefix}posts as p
        INNER JOIN {$wpdb->prefix}term_relationships as tr ON ( p.ID = tr.object_id OR p.post_parent = tr.object_id )
        INNER JOIN {$wpdb->prefix}term_taxonomy as tt ON tr.term_taxonomy_id = tt.term_taxonomy_id
        INNER JOIN {$wpdb->prefix}terms as t ON tt.term_id = t.term_id
        WHERE p.post_type = 'product_variation'
        AND p.post_status = 'publish'
        AND p.ID NOT IN (
			SELECT DISTINCT post_parent
			FROM {$wpdb->prefix}posts
			WHERE post_type = 'product_variation'
			AND post_status = 'publish'
		)
        AND tt.taxonomy = '$taxonomy'
        AND t.$type = '$term'
    " );
	return $ids;
}

You can then use the following in order to get the variation IDs by category or tag:

// BY PRODUCT CATEGORY
get_variations_from_term( 'chairs', 'product_cat', 'slug' );
get_variations_from_term( 59, 'product_cat', 'term_id' );
// ETC

// BY PRODUCT TAG
get_variations_from_term( 'shiny', 'product_tag', 'slug' );
get_variations_from_term( 'Super heavy', 'product_tag', 'name' );
// ETC

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Where to add custom code?

You should place PHP snippets at the bottom of your child theme functions.php file and CSS at the bottom of its style.css file. Make sure you know what you are doing when editing such files - if you need more guidance, please take a look at my guide "Should I Add Custom Code Via WP Editor, FTP or Code Snippets?" and my video tutorial "Where to Place WooCommerce Customization?"

Does this snippet (still) work?

Please let me know in the comments if everything went as expected. I would be happy to revise the snippet if you report otherwise (please provide screenshots). I have tested this code with Storefront theme, the WooCommerce version listed above and a WordPress-friendly hosting.

If you think this code saved you time & money, feel free to join 17,000+ WooCommerce Weekly subscribers for blog post updates and 250+ Business Bloomer supporters for 365 days of WooCommerce benefits. Thank you in advance!

Need Help with WooCommerce?

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Rodolfo Melogli

Business Bloomer Founder

Author, WooCommerce expert and WordCamp speaker, Rodolfo has worked as an independent WooCommerce freelancer since 2011. His goal is to help entrepreneurs and developers overcome their WooCommerce nightmares. Rodolfo loves travelling, chasing tennis & soccer balls and, of course, wood fired oven pizza.

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If you are writing code, please wrap it between shortcodes: [php]code_here[/php]. Failure to complying with this (as well as going off topic, not writing in English, etc.) will result in comment deletion. You should expect a reply in about 2 weeks - this is a popular blog but I need to get paid work done first. Please consider joining BloomerArmada to get blog comment reply priority, ask me 1-to-1 WooCommerce questions and enjoy many more perks. Thank you :)

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