Process Card Payments with Offline Mode

With Offline Mode, you can accept card payments when your Internet service is temporarily unavailable. Offline payments are processed automatically when you reconnect your device to the Internet and may be declined if not processed within 24 hours.

Offline Mode is available on Square Point of Sale, Square for Retail and Square for Restaurants apps.

Important to note

• You are responsible for any expired, declined or disputed payments accepted while offline. Before taking an offline payment, we recommend that you verify the name of the cardholder as well as the expiry date to ensure that it’s a valid card.

• If you have pending offline payments, do not sign out of the Square appor delete the app from your iOS or Android device. Do not factory reset the device used to take the payment. Make sure you process these payments by reconnecting your device to the Internet within 24 hours.

• Pending offline payments will be permanently lost, and the funds won’t be captured if you log out of your Square account on your Square Terminal or Square Register.

• Processing tapped and chip and PIN payments offline is currently available with Square Terminal and Square Register only. Keep an eye on the Seller Community for future updates.

Accept Payments Offline

*Square Stand (2nd generation) and Square Stand Mount require a Square Reader for magnetic stripe for Offline Mode capability.

You can accept offline payments when your customer taps (only with Apple Pay and Google Pay) or inserts a card with a Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Maestro, Visa Electron or VPay logo. Square gift cards will not work with Offline Mode. 

Enable Offline Mode

Overview

Once enabled, Offline Mode will be automatically activated whenever your Internet connectivity is unavailable. You will see a banner at the top of your device's screen indicating the app has automatically entered Offline Mode.

Note: In order for your team members to enable or disable Offline Mode, they will need to have the ‘Configure Checkout Settings’ box ticked in their permissions setting. Team members without this permission granted can still process payments in Offline Mode but will be unable to enable or disable Offline Mode.

Offline payments will appear as pending from your in-app payment history while your device is offline. When you reconnect your device to the Internet, payments will show as completed and will be visible from your online Square Dashboard. Customers’ digital receipts and your payment notification emails will also be sent when the app is back online. Remember – you’ll have 24 hours to upload your offline payments.

Accept Offline Payments Safely

• Be sure to obtain a signature for every transaction (where possible) and verify that the signature on the screen matches the signature on the back of the payment card. If the card is not signed, ask your customer for a government-issued ID and to sign the card.

• Looking at their ID, match the signature to the signature on the payment card. While you can’t require your customer to provide an ID, and requesting an ID doesn’t change your liability for chargebacks, unsigned cards are invalid and should not be accepted.

Remember, if a payment card is declined, Square is unable to provide customer contact information or contact the customer on your behalf.

Refund Offline Payments 

You’re unable to cancel or refund pending offline payments. To issue a refund:

1. Complete your pending payments by reconnecting to the Internet within 24 hours of the original transaction time.

2. This will automatically upload your payments.

3. Once complete, you can issue a refund from the Transactions tab of your Square Terminal, Square Register or online Square Dashboard.

FAQs

Learn more via our Offline Mode FAQ.