---
title: "Programatically assign variation visibility"
source: "https://docs.nexcess.com/software/kadence/iconic/show-single-variations/programatically-assign-variation-visibility/"
description: "Coming soon: Iconic Show Single Variations is becoming part of Kadence Shop Kit. You may see both names used while we update the product, documentation, and cus…"
vertical: "Software"
area: "Show Single Variations"
date: "2021-05-28"
last_modified: "2026-08-12"
---

# Programatically assign variation visibility

**Coming soon:** Iconic Show Single Variations is becoming part of Kadence Shop Kit. You may see both names used while we update the product, documentation, and customer experience.

If you’re looking to assign the variaton visibility in your store and don’t want to do it on a per-product basis, you can do so with the code on this page.

WooCommerce stores the visibility in a hidden taxonomy named `product_visibility`. The possible terms of this taxonomy are:

- exclude-from-catalog
- exclude-from-filtered
- exclude-from-search
- featured
- outofstock
- rated-1
- rated-2
- rated-3
- rated-4
- rated-5

Show Single Variations makes use of only the first 4: exclude-from-catalog, exclude-from-filtered, exclude-from-search, and featured.

**You can programatically assign any of these terms with a code snippet like this:**

```
$variation_id = 4053;
$append       = false;
$terms        = array( 'exclude-from-catalog' );
wp_set_object_terms( $variation_id, $terms, 'product_visibility', $append );
```

Please replace the value of $variation\_id with the ID of variation that you want to update.

You would also need to change post meta `<em>_visibility</em>`. This is used to set the value of these checkboxes:

![](https://docs.nexcess.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/image-2-9.png)```
$visibility = array( 'catalog', 'filtered', 'search' );
update_post_meta( $variation_id, '_visibility', $visibility );
```

### Example

To **show** a variation in catalog, search and filtered results, use this code:

```
$variation_id = 4053;
$append       = false; // Replace terms, don't append.
$terms        = array();
wp_set_object_terms( $variation_id, $terms, 'product_visibility', $append );

$visibility = array( 'catalog', 'filtered', 'search' );
update_post_meta( $variation_id, '_visibility', $visibility );

```

To **hide** a variation from catalog, search and filtered results, use this code:

```
$variation_id = 4053;
$append       = false; // Replace terms, don't append.
$terms        = array( 'exclude-from-catalog', 'exclude-from-filtered', 'exclude-from-search' );
wp_set_object_terms( $variation_id, $terms, 'product_visibility', $append );

$visibility = array();
update_post_meta( $variation_id, '_visibility', $visibility );

```