Add and manage your Goods and Services Tax (GST) settings

Please note that this guidance is general in nature and does not constitute legal, tax or any other type of professional advice. If you are unsure about your tax or where to find the relevant information, we suggest that you consult with a professional.

With Square Point of Sale, you can apply Goods and Services Tax (GST) to your sales and create custom taxes. Enable your team members to edit taxes at the time of a sale through your team permissions and track your taxable and non-taxable sales in your online Square Dashboard.

Square’s fees are taken out of the total amount of each transaction including tax and tip. Businesses registered for GST can include GST in item prices.

Create sales taxes

Create sales tax online

1. Go to Account & Settings from your online Square Dashboard.

2. Click Business information > Sales taxes.

3. Click Create tax.

4. Enter the tax name, rate and select the location.

5. Choose All taxable items to apply the tax to all current and future taxable items in your library or choose Select items to pick specific items. You can also apply the tax to custom amounts and include a service charge.

6. Choose to add an exemption rule which will specify when this tax shouldn’t be applied.

7. Choose to Include tax in item price to show one amount: the combined sales tax and item price. If toggled off, the tax will display as a separate line item.

8. Click Save.

Create sales tax in-app

From the Square Point of Sale app:

1. From the navigation bar at the bottom of your screen, tap ≡ More.

2. Tap Settings > Checkout > Taxes.

3. Tap the tax you would like to modify or create a new tax. On a mobile device tap the + icon. On a tablet, tap Add a New Tax. 

4. Fill out the tax information.

5. Tap All items and services to apply this tax to all current and future items and services or tap Select Items to choose which items will automatically incur this tax.

6. Select Services to choose which services will automatically incur this tax. Tap the back arrow after selecting specific items and services.

7. Toggle on Custom Amounts to apply this tax to amounts entered at the time of a sale.

8. Tap Item Pricing and select if this tax will be included in item prices or added to a price at the time of sale.

9. Tap Save.

Note: The option to apply tax to All items and services is currently available on the Square Point of Sale, Square Appointments and Square Invoices apps.

Disable or delete sales taxes

View taxes from item level

1. Go to Items & orders > Items from your online Square Dashboard.

2. Click an item to bring up the item details page. If taxes have been applied to an item they will be listed under the Taxes field.

3. If there is no sales tax applied, click Account & Settings > Sales Tax to get started.

Note: GST and custom taxes will automatically apply to sales where a custom amount is entered. To disable taxes for custom amounts visit your tax settings in the app.

Edit taxes at the time of sale

1. From the Square app, tap Checkout > Review Sale.

2. Tap an item.

3. Under Taxes, toggle applicable tax rates on or off.

Note: From the Current Sale screen, you can also tap Tax to view all tax rates applied to the current sale. Tap the red X icon to remove a tax rate from applicable items within the sale, then tap Save to return to checkout.

Manage taxes with the Catalogue Import Tool

Once you’ve created sales taxes, you can apply the tax to your catalogue via the catalogue import.

1. Once the tax rate is created, click Items & orders > Items from your online Square Dashboard.

2. Click Actions > Export Library.

3. Follow the prompts to export item library.

4. Once exported, tax columns will appear at the end of the spreadsheet. From here, enter Y or N in each item row to apply or not apply the tax rate to the selected item in the catalogue.

5. For large catalogues, items can be sorted by category or a formula can be written to facilitate the bulk application of tax rates.

6. Once tax rate(s) has been assigned to items within the spreadsheet, go back to Items > Actions > Import Catalogue > Modify Item Library to upload any changes.

Note: When editing any existing catalogue items from the spreadsheet, do not edit or remove the value in the Token column. Upon reimporting, the token is used to identify the existing item in the catalogue.