Accept payment cards with Square
About accepting payment cards
Square works with any Australian-issued and most internationally-issued magstripe or chip cards, and also supports mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and Afterpay.
Square processes all card types with the same standard rates. Learn more about how processing fees work.
Before you begin
The ability to charge your customers in different currencies with Square Point of Sale is not available. You’re unable to change the country of an existing Square account, but you’re always welcome to open a new account and select any supported country. The country of your account will dictate the currency symbol and currency formatting of your point of sale app.
You must be located in the country where you activated your account to process card payments.
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To process contactless, chip, or magstripe cards, be sure to set up your hardware to accept payments:
To enter cards manually or store cards on file, you will need to enable additional payment types.
Accepted cards
Square works with any Australian-issued and most internationally-issued magstripe and chip cards bearing a Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB, or eftpos logo.
The following card types are accepted:
- Credit
- Debit (processed like credit)
Afterpay is a buy now, pay later (BNPL) payment option that allows customers to pay for their purchases in four interest-free instalments. Merchants get paid in full—immediately. Enabling Afterpay with Square is free—there are no monthly fees or startup costs. The Afterpay processing fee is 6% + 30¢ (excluding GST) per Afterpay order across all Square products that accept it.
- Square sellers using Afterpay get paid the full amount at the time of purchase, minus a processing fee on the total order.
- You only pay when you make a sale—there are no processing fees charged on the remaining instalments or if your customer makes a late payment.
- Afterpay rates are fixed and do not vary by subscription type, hardware, or custom pricing.
Learn how to Accept Afterpay payments with Square.
Square can process prepaid cards bearing a Visa, Mastercard, American Express, or eftpos logo at our standard processing rates. Any remaining balance from prepaid cards will display on the receipt.
Note: When manually entering a prepaid card, check that your customer has registered the card with a billing address and postcode. Information on how to register the card may also be available on the back of the card.
Square can process most internationally-issued cards via manual entry, by swiping a card, dipping a chip card, or tapping a contactless card. If your customer or a payment card isn’t present, you can manually enter card payments with Square.
Keep the following in mind when processing international cards:
- If you experience issues processing an internationally-issued card, have the cardholder contact their issuer.
- Cardholders may be charged for currency conversion by their card issuer since payments must be processed in your country’s official currency.
- You must be located in the country where you activated your Square account to process payments.
Square can also process payments from your international customers via Square Invoices or our eCommerce solutions. Learn how to Create and send invoices and how to Set up your online store with Square Online.
More payment types
In addition to payment cards, you can accept other payment types including card on file, cash, Square Gift Card, and more. Learn how to Customise payment types with Square Point of Sale and Accept cash and cheques with Square.