Accept and manage bitcoin payments
About bitcoin payments
When your customers want to pay for goods and services, you can accept bitcoin as a payment method. These payment amounts will be based on the USD value of your goods and services. You can choose to settle in bitcoin using the conversion market price at the time of each transaction or settle in dollars.
You can enable this feature and can view any bitcoin you receive from these payments from the Bitcoin section under the Banking tab in Square Dashboard. All of your bitcoin sales will appear in your Square sales reporting and marked as bitcoin transactions.
Before you begin
You must be 18 years or older to use this feature.
Bitcoin payments have a 0% processing fee until December 31, 2026, after which it will be 1%. Learn about Square fees.
Bitcoin payments aren't available to businesses or business locations located in New York. If your primary business location isn’t in New York, only specific locations located outside of New York can accept bitcoin payments.
Ensure you're using the most up to date version of the Square app. Bitcoin payments are only available in standard and restaurant mode at this time.
If you enable bitcoin payments, all eligible business locations will have bitcoin payments enabled.
For inventory items, sales taxes are appropriately calculated based on the account’s tax setup. For keypad-based transactions, taxes will need to be manually enabled on each individual line item.
The maximum individual transaction amount is the current bitcoin market equivalent of $600, and a $20,000 total daily limit.
Square doesn’t support dispute handling or chargebacks for bitcoin payments. Any transaction issues must be resolved between the seller and the customer directly.
Square doesn’t withhold capital gains or losses for bitcoin payments at the time of a transaction. Sellers are responsible for paying capital gains taxes based on any increase in the bitcoin value between the time of bitcoin asset receipt and future bitcoin asset sale. Information around capital gains and losses will be provided as part of a 1099-DA issuance.
Enable or disable bitcoin payments
To enable bitcoin payments you first need to complete the setup of your bitcoin wallet from the Banking > Bitcoin tab of Square Dashboard. When setting up bitcoin payments, you'll be automatically enrolled for Square e-gift cards to issue bitcoin refunds. You can also choose to convert a percentage of your sales into bitcoin. you can choose to convert a percentage of your sales into bitcoin. Learn how to convert sales into bitcoin.
Enable bitcoin payments
When setting up bitcoin payments, you can decide if you want to receive your payments in bitcoin or in dollars.
- Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Banking > Bitcoin.
- Click Get started and complete the setup of your bitcoin wallet.
- Next to Bitcoin, tap Activate.
- Complete two-step verification if it’s not already set up on your account. Learn how to set up two-step verification.
- Verify your business information > Next. The steps you need to complete to verify your business are:
- Provide your legal business name
- Provide your Employer Identification Number (EIN)
- Enter your business address
- Verify your business
- Verify beneficial ownership
- Choose to receive your payments in dollars or bitcoin > Next.
- If desired, tap Add me to the map to help customers discover and spend bitcoin at your business through Cash App. If you want to opt out, select *Skip for now.
- Review your bitcoin payment settings and click Done.
- Open the app and tap Banking.
- Next to Bitcoin, tap Activate.
- Complete two-step verification if it’s not already set up on your account. Learn how to set up two-step verification.
- Verify your business information > Next. The steps you need to complete to verify your business are:
- Provide your legal business name
- Provide your Employer Identification Number (EIN)
- Enter your business address
- Verify your business
- Verify beneficial ownership
- Choose to receive your payments in dollars or bitcoin > Next.
- If desired, tap Add me to the map to help customers discover and spend bitcoin at your business through Cash App. If you want to opt out, select *Skip for now.
- Review your bitcoin payment settings and tap Done.
Disable bitcoin payments
Bitcoin payments are specific to your device’s mode settings. Learn how to create and assign modes.
- Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Settings > Device management > Modes.
- Choose the mode you want to disable bitcoin payments for and select Manage > Checkout > Payments.
- Click the three dots next to Bitcoin > Disable payment type.
- Click Save.
Accept bitcoin payments
Once you’ve enabled bitcoin payments you can accept bitcoin for a transaction, but ensure that you've upgraded to the latest version of the Square POS app. To do so:
From the Checkout flow or the Menu flow on your Square POS device, enter the amount of the transaction in dollars or select a product from your catalog or menu.
Select Pay and choose Bitcoin as the method of payment.
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Have the customer scan the QR code with their bitcoin lightning-enabled wallet from their mobile device.
If the transaction is confirmed on the customer’s wallet but is taking too long to confirm on your point of sale, click the three dots in the upper right corner and select Complete payment to manually confirm the transaction and issue a receipt. Clicking this button is up to the discretion of the seller and relies on ensuring that the bitcoin payment has successfully been sent from the payor. Square is not responsible for reimbursement for any transactions confirmed this way but not received by the seller.
If the transaction takes more than five minutes to complete, the payment will be declined and you need to create a new cart to accept the bitcoin payment with the new exchange rate.
You can send the receipt to the customer via email or text message. Customers also receive loyalty points for their bitcoin payment if you have a Square Loyalty program. Learn how to create a loyalty program.
Refund a bitcoin payment
Refunds for bitcoin transactions can only be completed from the Square POS app on a mobile device or tablet, and refunds are issued via a gift card for the equivalent amount of bitcoin in dollars. To issue a refund:
Open the app and tap Transactions.
Select the transaction in question and tap Issue refund.
Choose to refund items or an amount to refund > Next.
Select the dollar amount to refund and provide a reason for the refund > Next. The refund amount will be sent back to the customer in the same amount of bitcoin as the initial payment amount in the form of a gift card that can be used in your store.
Review the refund details and select Confirm > Done.
View bitcoin payments and reports
You can view your bitcoin payments and reports from Square Dashboard.
You can view your bitcoin transactions just as you would any regular transaction:
- Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Transactions.
- Bitcoin transactions will be denominated in dollars. When you view the transaction details you can see the payment method from Other > Bitcoin Transaction.
You can view more details about your bitcoin transactions from the Bitcoin tab:
- Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Banking.
- Within the Bitcoin tab you’ll see Payments.
- Bitcoin transactions will be denominated in dollars and bitcoin and you’ll see the amount of bitcoin collected from an individual transaction.
- Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Orders.
- Select the transaction in question.
- An order summary will appear that displays the transaction amount in both bitcoin and dollars.
- Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Reports.
- From your Item sales report or Payment methods report, click All payment methods and filter by bitcoin.
- A bitcoin payments report will populate that you can print or download as a CSV file.