Set up your Square account
About creating your Square account
Square connects every aspect of your business, so you can focus on your customers. It doesn’t matter what you sell, Square has apps, features, integrations, and hardware, built to work together and simplify your day-to-day. Square helps you run your business — start accepting payments, onboard your team, generate robust sales and inventory reports, and reduce your administrative time. Getting set up with Square only takes a few minutes.
Before you begin
The steps in this guide are the setup instructions to create a Square account. If you already completed one of the steps, you can skip to the next one.
As a regulated financial services company, Square is required to verify the identity of anyone who wishes to use our payment services. We can accept any of the following document types:
Passport or Passport Card
UK/EU/EEA National ID Card (Note: We don't currently accept Public Services Cards)
UK/EU/EEA Driver’s Licence
We are also required by regulation to verify the identity of any other business owners, shareholders, directors, partners and beneficial owners, as applicable. There is no way to activate your Square account to accept payments without all applicable parties completing verification.
When uploading your documents and pictures for verification, check the following:
Make sure that your images are clear and include the full ID or ID page. If you upload images that are blurry, have excessive glare, or crop out the edges of your ID, our verification partner may have difficulty completing the verification. For best results take a picture of your ID against a plain background, such as a clear tabletop or blank wall.
Make sure you’re taking a photo of your actual ID, and not a screenshot or a photo of a picture of your ID. Submitting a photo of a picture or screenshot will prevent us from being able to verify your account.
You will also be required to upload a selfie to verify against your ID. For best results, take a picture of yourself straight-on in a well-lit room. Excessive shadows and blurriness in your photo will prevent us from accurately matching your photo and ID.
If you get stuck at any point, contact our Customer Success team. You can get support at SquareMonday through Friday between 9 AM to 5 PM, or reach us in the Seller Community.
Step 1: Initiate Square account creation
- Visit the page squareup.com/signup.
- Enter your Email address, create a Password and select United Kingdom, then click Continue.
- Enter your Business name and select the kind of business you run, then click Start using Square.
Step 2: Tell us about your business
Provide basic information about your business such as your business name, type of business and business category.
Once the information has been entered, you will be directed to your newly created Square Dashboard. The following steps guide you on how to activate payments and set up your Square account.
Step 3: Onboard your business
When you sign up for an account with Square, you’ll be asked to provide additional information about your business. From your Square Dashboard homepage, click Start next to Verify Your Identity. You'll be asked to provide additional information about your business. Start by selecting whether your business is an individual or sole trader or a company with a company registration number. You'll be asked to enter information such as your VAT number if you have one, your address and your phone number.
Step 4: Verify your identity
You’ll also be asked to provide personal information to verify your personal identity. Even if you plan on using Square as a business or organisation, to create a Square account you must provide this information.
As a regulated financial services company, Square is required to verify the identity of anyone who wishes to use our payment services. To do so, we use a document-based verification system that verifies your identity based on a photo ID document, such as a passport.
We are also required by regulation to verify the identity of any other business owners, shareholders, directors, partners and beneficial owners, as applicable.
Once you have uploaded a photo of your ID and your selfie, our verification partner will work to complete their checks in the background while you complete the rest of the Square registration process.
Verification status
Once you have finished signing up for your Square account, you can check your verification status from the Setup Guide in your Square Dashboard.
During the registration process, we will ask the Square Account Owner to confirm the information of any applicable persons, and provide their email address. Square will then send an email with a link and instructions for completing verification.
If the information of any applicable persons appears incorrect, please make sure you provide the correct information before adding their email address so they can complete verification. Proceeding with incorrect information can cause the verification to fail, and your Square account not activated.
To check on the verification status of your business partners:
Option A:
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard.
- Click Start next to Wait for Owners and Directors to Verify Identity.
Option B
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Settings > Account & Settings.
- Click My business > People.
- Click Send reminder next to your business partner name(s).
The link sent to other business owners will expire after two weeks–if they have not completed verification before then, you can resend the link from your Square Dashboard.
If your verification status is Pending, we’ll let you know if we need anything else from you, and you’ll receive a notification in your Dashboard as soon as you’ve been verified. You should receive a notification within 1-2 working days.
Step 5: Link your bank account
Before you receive your first transfer from Square, you need to add a verified bank account to your Square account. Learn how to link and edit your bank account.
Step 6: Set up transfer options
After you activate your Square account and link a bank account, transfers are automatically sent per our Next Business Day schedule. Learn how to customize your close of day.
Step 7: Order Square hardware
If you already selected and received Square hardware, you can skip to the next step.
Square has POS hardware to help you and your team members to check out customers and accept payments quickly. Visit Square Shop to order your hardware.
Step 8: Create your item library
As you add your business details to Square, you can create, edit and manage items from your item library in Square Dashboard. Learn how to create and edit items.
Step 9: Set up your team
When you’re ready to start selling, make sure that your team members are too. Learn how to add and manage team members.