Accept payment cards with Square
About accepting payment cards
Square works with any US-issued and most internationally-issued magstripe or chip cards, and also supports mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and Afterpay.
Square processes all card types with the same standard rates. Learn more about how processing fees work.
Before you begin
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To process contactless, chip, or magstripe cards, be sure to set up your hardware to accept payments:
To enter cards manually or store cards on file, you will need to enable additional payment types.
Cross-border card payments are unsupported. You must be located in the country where you activated your account to process card payments.
The ability to charge your customers in different currencies with Square Point of Sale is not available. You’re unable to change the country of an existing Square account, but you’re always welcome to open a new account and select any supported country. The country of your account will dictate the currency symbol and currency formatting of your point of sale app.
Accepted cards
Square works with any US-issued and most internationally-issued magstripe and chip cards bearing a Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB, or UnionPay International logo.
The following card types are accepted:
- Credit
- Debit (processed like credit)
- Corporate
- Rewards
From your Square app, customers can use Afterpay Card on their mobile device to pay for in-person orders up to $2,000. All remaining payments are handled entirely by Afterpay. If your customer is late or misses a payment, it doesn’t affect your business. Learn how to Accept Afterpay payments with Square Point of Sale.
Square can process prepaid cards bearing a Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB, or UnionPay International logo at our standard processing rates. Any remaining balance from prepaid cards will display on the receipt.
Note: When manually entering a prepaid card, check that your customer has registered the card with a billing address and postal code. Information on how to register the card may also be available on the back of the card.
Square can process most internationally-issued cards via manual entry, by swiping a card, dipping a chip card, or tapping a contactless card. If your customer or a payment card isn’t present, you can manually enter card payments with Square.
Keep the following in mind when processing international cards:
- If you experience issues processing an internationally-issued card, have the cardholder contact their issuer.
- Cardholders may be charged for currency conversion by their card issuer since payments must be processed in your country’s official currency.
- You must be located in the country where you activated your Square account to process payments.
Square can also process payments from your international customers via Square Invoices or our eCommerce solutions. Learn how to create and send Square Invoices and how to get started with Square Online.
Licensed health care providers and pharmacies can process Health Savings Account (HSA) and Flexible Spending Account (FSA) cards with Square.
If you believe your business category needs to be updated, contact Square’s Customer Success team.
Daycare centers and childcare services are unable to accept HSA and FSA cards through Square at this time.