This paper presents a C0 8-node quadrilateral finite element (FE) for geometrically linear piezoelectric plates/shells. It is based on a high-order kinematics proposed for the mechanical part. The approximation of the electric potential must be able to model piezoelectric patches, and a constant value is considered on each elementary domain while a cubic variation in each layer is used, based on the polynomial expansion. Furthermore, Murakami’s ZigZag functions are superimposed for the three displacement components for improving the accuracy for multilayered modeling. A plate/shell FE is obtained with nine degrees of freedom (dof) per node for the mechanical part, twelve dofs if the ZigZag functions are included. This FE is evaluated on some standard piezoelectric plate/shell tests including sensor and actuator configurations. Tests concerning bimorph piezoelectric beam/plate/shell are presented in order to assess the high-order kinematics and the ZigZag effect. The role of electrode segmentation, i.e. the size of equipotential surfaces, on the electro-mechanical response has been also considered.