I understand that Square Credit Card fee is required. My problem -- it is applied for all sales!

[ArtWorks1]

I have combed through many community questions, but there is no actual direction about applying the fee only to credit card sales. We are an all-volunteer, non-profit art gallery and just went through our biggest event of the year. We got a lot of push back for the fee charged on all sales. We do want government tax on all sales, but not a CC fee on cash and check payments.

We used to have slider buttons to turn either/both tax and CC fee on, but they are not available consistently (They seems to appear sometimes, but not others. Have not pinned it down.).

Since we sell on commission for artists, we can't apply hidden fees to base prices either -- and that seems less than honest anyway.

Have I set something up incorrectly? Are the slider buttons item based? I.e., no way to universally tag CC payments exclusively? AND is setup different between online and POS?

[ryanwanner · Accepted solution]

Hello @ArtWorks1 !

Currently Square has no way to tell the difference between credit and debit card transactions. In fact, having a processing fee/service charge for cards is explicitly against Square's Terms and Conditions and could get your account closed.

You can apply service charges to tickets, which is more than likely the slider you were talking about, but I don't recommend doing so for credit card fees. Your best bet is to raise your prices across the board by the average swipe rate then offering a cash discount, which is allowed by Square.

[ArtWorks1 · Accepted solution]

Ryan, thank you for your response, but I am not asking Square to discriminate between CC and debit cards. I want my cash and check sales not to be charged the CC fee -- because Square, as they themselves say, does not process those. I do not know how to take the fee off for cash and check sales. Everything is getting the fee charged and people are unhappy when they see that line named "Credit Card Processing Charge" (or something as specific) on a cash or check receipt/transaction. How do I fix that? It must be so obvious that people can't believe I'm asking...

[ryanwanner · Accepted solution]

Hello @ArtWorks1 !

Currently Square has no way to tell the difference between credit and debit card transactions. In fact, having a processing fee/service charge for cards is explicitly against Square's Terms and Conditions and could get your account closed.

You can apply service charges to tickets, which is more than likely the slider you were talking about, but I don't recommend doing so for credit card fees. Your best bet is to raise your prices across the board by the average swipe rate then offering a cash discount, which is allowed by Square.

[ArtWorks1 · Accepted solution]

Ryan, thank you for your response, but I am not asking Square to discriminate between CC and debit cards. I want my cash and check sales not to be charged the CC fee -- because Square, as they themselves say, does not process those. I do not know how to take the fee off for cash and check sales. Everything is getting the fee charged and people are unhappy when they see that line named "Credit Card Processing Charge" (or something as specific) on a cash or check receipt/transaction. How do I fix that? It must be so obvious that people can't believe I'm asking...

[ryanwanner]

Aaah! I see what you're saying now @ArtWorks1 !

Square does not charge fees at all for cash and check sales. My bet is at some time a service charge was set up on your account. Check your settings on the dashboard at

Dashboard -> Account & Settings -> Payments -> Service Charges

and see if there is a charge like you said is listed.

If not, can you post an image of one of the receipts showing this charge? It'll help us figure out where in the process the charge is being added to the bill.

[Candlestore · Accepted solution]

@ArtWorks1 ;

Do you have a image of a cash receipt with this fee on it?  On my Receipts I only have the item totals and a Sales Tax that customers sees.   The Square fee is out of MY pocket from the total that is charged to the customer.  Do you have an added "tax" or service fee that is added to Every sale?  As Ryan mentioned those types of fees are against Squares and most of the Credit card policies to recouop credit card fees.

Surcharging not supported

Because payment networks recently updated their rules around credit card surcharging, Square cannot support surcharging at this time, and you cannot use the service charge feature to add a credit card surcharge. Surcharging is not permitted on debit cards, prepaid cards, or Afterpay transactions. Surcharging is also subject to local laws and regulations that apply to your business and must comply with card network rules, including notification requirements.

The above can be found in this Square article.  7625-get-started-with-service-charges 

Now the only work around is to have Signs saying, When paying in cash you automatically get a 3% discount.  But you or your staff must add the 3% discount yourself otherwise it could be applied to all sales.  This is a very Grey area and some areas say you can not charge more for an item if the consumer uses a Credit Card, but there are no laws on who gets a discount.  Yes I know its the samething but the wording is different in the eyes of the courts.  If you have a Service Fee, my accountant calls it a Convience Fee ( Convience of using a credit card and not carrying cash) that is applied when using a credit card.  I was told by my accountants  They have sinage everywhere stating this.  This is what they do in my area, if its leagal with Square or in your area is a different topic. My accountantant does not use Square and this was before the updated rules. 

I have had other credit card processors contact me and say they can get me FREE credit processing and save me $$$, and all they do is have their system automatically apply a Discount to Cash transacations.  Then they want outragous monthly fees for Their Equipment.  They also tell me I would also need to have Signage printed stating a Cash Discount of X%, sign a contract etc.

[ArtWorks1]

Thank you Kieth and Ryan  😊

I don't see how to add images here (it says I don't have permission), but can tell you:

1. I do not have surcharges applied

2. The cash receipt I am wishing to load has a line "Square Credit Card Fee (4%)" under cost and over taxes, followed by sum. Maybe Missouri law causes Square to hedge bets to stay legal.

So, it looks like I have to explore Kieth's option to provide a discount for cash and check sales. We do have a Credit Card reader ("puck") so I have reduced the amount to 3%. Now I will make it go away with a discount.

Since the fee is never an exact fee with established 2.something percent+.10, I suppose we will occasionally be eating some cost, but is a cost of doing business, I suppose...

Thank you very much for your time and expertice, Joan