Accept payment cards with Square
About accepting payment cards
Square works with any UK-issued and most internationally-issued magstripe or chip cards, and also supports mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Clearpay.
Square processes all card types with the same standard rates. Learn more about how processing fees work.
Before you begin
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 UK-issued and most internationally-issued magstripe and chip cards bearing a Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB or UnionPay International logo.
From your Square app, customers can use Clearpay on their mobile device to pay for in-person orders up to £2,000. All remaining payments are handled entirely by Clearpay. If your customer is late or misses a payment, it doesn’t affect your business. Learn how to Accept Clearpay payments with Square Point of Sale.
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 Square Invoices and how to get started with Square Online.