Transfer Ownership of Your Square Account
Transfer your Square account to a new person within your organisation or accept a transfer to become the new owner of an existing Square account for individuals and sole traders. Transferring an account will change all the personal information associated with an account, such as the owner’s name, email address, phone number and date of birth.
Account Ownership Transfer Eligibility
| Scenario | Eligibility | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Square account without ABN | Eligible | Follow account transfer steps below. |
| Square account with ABN | Ineligible | Create a new Square account. |
| Square Loans: You have an active loan from Square or a pending application for one. | Ineligible | If you have an active loan, you’ll be able to transfer your account 10 days after your loan balance is fully paid off. If you have a pending application, you can cancel it to transfer your account. Visit the Loans section of your online Square Dashboard to manage your loans. |
| Hardware Financing: You have an active hardware financing plan from Square. | Ineligible | You’ll be able to transfer your account when your balance is fully paid off. |
| Frozen or Disabled: Your Square account is frozen, or your payments have been disabled. | Ineligible | You must resolve this before initiating an account ownership transfer. |
| Negative Balance: Your account has a negative balance. | Ineligible | You must resolve it before initiating an account ownership transfer. |
| Sale of Business | Ineligible | Square does not support transferring accounts with ABNs during the sale of a business because this disrupts tax reporting for the new owners. You will need to create a new Square account with the new owner’s details. |
| Original owner or designate is not willing or able to transfer the account. | Ineligible | The original owner must verify their identity by entering their details. Alternatively, a new Square account must be created. |
Note: The account ownership transfer feature is not supported when selling a business or changing Australian Business Numbers (ABNs) because this disrupts tax reporting for the new owners.
Account Ownership Transfer Not Eligible
If your Square account is not eligible to transfer ownership, or if you’re the new business owner, and the original account holder is no longer associated with the business or organisation, we recommend the following:
Contact the previous account holder and request they deactivate the current Square account.
Activate a new Square account using your information. You can use the same business name and bank account regardless of whether these were used with the previous account.
Transfer Checklist
Once you've confirmed your eligibility and before beginning an account transfer, make sure you have:
Presence of Existing Owner: The existing owner of the account must be able to log in to their Square account, verify their identity and be willing to transfer ownership.
Cancelled Subscriptions: If you're subscribed to Square products such as Square Online or Square app integrations, ensure you have completely cancelled this prior to transferring accounts as subscriptions do not migrate.
Square Loans: By proceeding with this transfer of account ownership, any Square Loan offers will be disabled for 30 days.
Start a Square Account Transfer
If you are the existing Square account owner:
Go to Account & Settings from your Square Dashboard.
Click Business information > About my business.
Click Transfer business.
Answer the eligibility questions, then click Continue.
Confirm This is NOT a Sale of Business.
Fill out the form to verify your identity, including your legal name and date of birth.
Enter the new account owner’s email address. Square will send an identity verification form to the new owner.
Check the box for Transfer of Account Agreement, then click Agree & Continue.
Read the Transfer of Account Agreement and click OK.
Check your email inbox for the automated Transfer Account Confirmation email.
Click Confirm Transfer.
Note: You cannot undo an account ownership transfer. Once the transfer is complete, the only way to regain ownership of the account is to complete another transfer.
Accept a Square Account Transfer
If you are the new account owner, you must complete these steps within 24 hours of the transfer initiation:
Open the Transfer Account Verification email sent to the email attached to the Square account and click Verify Identity.
Fill out the identity verification form. Note: Your personal information will only be used to confirm your identity and will not be used to perform a credit check.
Check the box for Transfer of Account Agreement and click Agree & Continue. If the identity verification is successful, then the ownership transfer is complete.
You will then receive an email to reset your Square account password. Open the email and click Reset Password.
Enter your new password, and select your language and time zone preferences.
Click Save Changes.
Note: If the new owner does not start the final steps within 24 hours, the ownership transfer request will expire and must be re-requested by the current owner.
FAQ
Not at this time. Square does not support transferring an account during the sale of a business because this disrupts tax reporting for the new owners.
Yes. As long as the account owner verifies their identity during the transfer, you can initiate an account ownership transfer.
You may see a banner on your Square Dashboard stating, “The transfer is pending. Waiting for the new account owner to verify their identity and sign the Transfer of Account Agreement.” This message means that the new owner has not completed the verification sent to their email. During this period, the current seller cannot initiate another transfer until the new owner completes the transfer or the transfer request expires after 24 hours.