Understanding Square processing fees.
Square is committed to transparency in how our payment processing fees are distributed. When a customer spends money with your business, Square only keeps a fraction of the fees, while most of the revenue goes right back into your business.
Square fees by payment type
Card-present payments
The cost to you is 2.5% per transaction when a customer taps or inserts a credit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express) or 0.75% + 7¢ per debit transaction.
An additional 1.5% fee applies to transactions made with cards issued outside of Canada.
Card-not-present payments
There are multiple types of card-not-present payments. Square pays more for these transactions and the fee increase goes directly to the card issuing bank to help mitigate the risk of fraud and protect your business.
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When you manually key in your customer’s card details or use a card on file, the fee is 3.3% + 15¢.
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When a customer makes a purchase through your Square Online (including Interac Debit via Apple Pay or Google Pay), eCommerce API, or pays an invoice online, the fee is 2.8% + 30¢.
An additional 1.5% fee applies to transactions made with cards issued outside of Canada.
Card processing fees explained.
To process a sale, there are several types of set fees within a transaction. These are set not by Square but by cardholder banks and card networks. They are included as part of Square’s card processing fee. Learn more
Interchange fees
Every time a customer uses a credit or debit card in your store, a fee is paid to the cardholder’s issuing bank. These fees are dictated by the payment associations such as Mastercard and Visa and can vary greatly, depending on the type of card being used by your customers and the type of transaction you are accepting (for example, in-person or online). When Square processes a transaction on your behalf, Square is required to give a percentage of the total funds collected to pay interchange to your customer’s card issuer.
Assessment fees
Associations such as Mastercard or Visa also collect fees, called dues and assessments, for the use of their card brands as well as the ability to process transactions through their payment networks. Square is required to give a percentage of the total amount collected from your customer to pay these associations.
Risk and PCI compliance
PCI DSS is a security standard all businesses that accept credit cards must comply with to safely and securely accept, store, process, and transmit cardholder data during debit and credit card transactions. Square’s tools help keep sellers PCI compliant. Square complies with PCI standards so you don’t have to validate your compliance, nor do you pay associated annual fees.
How Square processing fees work.
Here’s an illustrative example using the credit card present processing rate and where the processing fees goes every time you make a sale.
Data in the figure is an illustrative example using the CA credit card present processing rate. Note that the fee for an Interac debit transaction is 0.75% + 7¢ so on a $50 transaction, your business keeps $49.55.
Square tools and features.
With Square, you benefit from many resources designed to help you run your business.
Point of sale and eCommerce solutions
Download the free Square POS app or launch an online store so you can sell right away without any up-front investment.
Fraud prevention
Fraud can happen in both low-risk transactions and higher-risk transactions such as card-not-present purchases. We work around the clock to evaluate the legitimacy of your buyers to protect your business.