Refund Overview

Process refunds for payments directly from Square Point of Sale app or your online Square Dashboard.

Refunds processed through the Square Point of Sale app on a mobile device must be requested and completed within 120 days of the original transaction. Payments refunded via your online Square Dashboard can be refunded within one year of the original transaction date.

Once this window has passed, you must issue refunds outside of Square.

When you issue a refund, your customer will be refunded their full purchase amount, and you will be refunded Square’s processing fee.

An team member's ability to process refunds is determined by their role and permissions.

Overview: Refunds with Square

Once this window has passed, you must issue refunds outside of Square.

How Refunds Work

Refund Process

Once a refund is initiated, Square will debit the amount you were paid (sale amount minus initial processing fee), and will credit the full purchase amount back to your customer’s card. Square will be responsible for covering the processing fees associated. For example, if the amount of the refunded transaction was €25, then you will be debited €24.31 and the fees (€0.69 in this case) are covered by Square. €25 will be returned to your customer.

The same process applies for partial refunds. The amount you are debited (and fees Square refunds) will be proportional to the partial refund amount requested.

You will receive email notifications once a refund is requested as well as when a refund completes.

Where will the funds or refund come from?

How you are charged for refunds depends on your transfer schedule and the funds available in your Square Balance.

If you receive automatic nightly transfers, your Square account balance will be used to cover the amount of the refund and your bank account will be debited for any remaining amount needed. Using the €25 payment/refund example above, imagine you had €20 in your Square account balance. To repay your customer, Square would first take €20 from your Square account balance and then debit your bank account for the remaining €4.31. This activity will be reflected in your Transfer Reports on the business day you processed the refund.

Funds removed from your Square balance to cover refunds will be reflected in your transfer reports within the Balance section of your Square Dashboard. If a debit to your bank account is made, it will also appear in your transfer reports.

Refund Timeline

Square typically takes 2-7 working days to process your refund. Once the refund is processed and sent to your customer’s card issuing bank, it can take another 2-7 business days (depending on the bank’s processing speeds) for the refund to post to the customer’s account. In total it can take 4-14 business days for your customer to receive their refund.

Payments processed on Square Online are only eligible to refund within 120 days.

Note: Refund requests that aren’t covered by your Square balance may not be approved, even if requested within the appropriate time frame.

Declined Refund

If a refund to a payment card is declined, the buyer will automatically be notified about the decline. In this case, you will be instructed to issue an alternative form of payment to the buyer to complete the refund, such as cash, cheque, or gift card credit.

Refund Policy

Customise your refund and return policy from the Receipt settings in your online Square Dashboard. Your policy appears on email, text, and printed receipts. If a return policy is absent, it’s assumed there’s no policy. Be sure to clearly state if you don’t offer refunds or warranties.

Note: All major card companies allow cardholders to dispute purchases if a customer can demonstrate that they didn’t receive the purchased product or service. Learn how to protect yourself against chargebacks.

Learn how to process a refund from your Point of Sale app or online Square Dashboard.

Refund Reporting

Reporting details for your refunds can be found in both the Transactions and Balance sections of your Square Dashboard or Square Point of Sale app.

Balance

To help reconcile refunds with the transfers sent to your bank account, check your transfer reports by selecting Balance > Transfer Reports from your online Square Dashboard.

When you issue a refund, the deduction of the refund from the overall amount transferred to your bank account is reflected under the line item Returns.

Transactions

You can find the information for individual payments and refunds under Transactions in either your online Square Dashboard, or within the Square Point of Sale app.

When you process a refund, it will appear as an additional, separate transaction in your reporting. If you select either the original payment transaction or the refund transaction, you will be able to view both the refund and payment information.