thread Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account! in Event Discussions

Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

Tom — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:25:21 GMT

Hello Seller Community!

To allow your business to accept card payments, Square is required to perform a series of checks to verify your identity and your business. As your business evolves, we also need to stay up to date to provide you the best financial services. We strive to make it fast and easy while fulfilling our regulatory and payment network obligations.

With that, we want to hear from you:

What do you think of our payment onboarding experience?
What suggestions would you give to improve the experience?

On Monday, April 24 we welcomed @laylaliang and @lanj from the Trusted Identity team for a question & answer session! Their team is eager to learn about how they can help you get started quickly as well as answer any questions you may have. Check out the "Best Answer" below for a summary post that covers the main takeaways from this discussion.

We're unable to share account-specific details within our online forums, though information on your experience will be helpful as we continue to make improvements. For account questions, please contact the Customer Success team directly.

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

jael03faulcon — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 14:43:53 GMT

There are a lot of moving parts. It took quite a bit of trial and error. Think I've got it.

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

Cc881 — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 17:01:48 GMT

I utterly hate the constant verification. It’s a true hinderance to my business to have this done periodically especially when I’m not told it’s happening and at times the reason given is “oh we are protecting you from yourself as we think you’re an idiot who can fall prey to scams”… an initial verification should be done ONLY. Doing it periodically makes me lose money and honestly I’m still looking into changing. Square has left a bitter taste in my mouth and I never recommend y’all to fellow entrepreneurs

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

ManMadeLLC — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 18:28:58 GMT

How do I verify my identity? I don't want to be part of a chat community, I dont want to make a profile, I dont want to click "Like" buttons. I want to manage my business and go on with my day. How do I verify?

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

Jjpainting — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 18:33:32 GMT

I am totally fine with the initial verification, but what I’m seeing is that there are periodic verifications which pretty much freezes your account from preforming certain types of banking. I’m not sure how often this happens, but what I want to know is why you can’t do a periodic verification without disrupting our business. I have only been with square for about 8 months, so this hasn’t happened to me yet, but I will not be happy when it does cause it makes zero sense

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

ManMadeLLC — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 18:45:18 GMT

How do I verify? Do they call or send an email? I have been with square for only 3 months. and so far so good, but if these rumors are true and they stop taking credit card for a day or stop bank transactions That will be the last day I use them.

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

BlingtimeLLC — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 02:24:49 GMT

I’ve not had the chance to fully take a look at everything but I’m seeing a lot of negative comments

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

Cc881 — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 03:30:28 GMT

They sure do. I’ve had them 4 years and they’ve held my account with hundreds of dollars for weeks with no way to reach the “verification” dept. it’s hell

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

Jammerg56 — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 08:05:19 GMT

Why should entrepreneurs use Square up instead of PayPal?

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

Hkmoen15 — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 12:33:52 GMT

Have yet to get it to work. So I am using another company whose fees are higher but payments are easy. I have been verified but I want to use tap to pay and it fails every time or doesn’t allow me to enter a total. Been almost a month but I don’t have time to figure it out.

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

lindylouunique — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 14:50:41 GMT

Wow. I'm new to square and have a big event coming up. I'm suddenly very nervous about the negative experiences I'm seeing here. Nervous enough I'm thinking I might need to jump on a new POS platform quickly. Why all of the verification? Am I going to be blindsided when I least expect it? I had no idea there was ongoing verification and my business might be locked down by surprise!

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

SweetsbyN — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 15:02:21 GMT

The installation was easy. I will let you know when I do my first transaction.

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

Jjpainting — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 15:15:25 GMT

I’ve been with square for about 8-9 months and have only had that initial verification. I wanna say it took around 48 hours…maybe a little less or more, and as I remember, everything still operates as normal, and you can still accept payments, you just do not have access to your money during this time. I understand the purpose of the initial verification, but I do not understand why they cannot do a periodic verification without locking you out of using your own money. That just blows my mind.

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

TLT2023 — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 15:20:28 GMT

I am just getting my business off the ground, and the last thing I need are these kinds of headaches. I haven't even received my POS card reader yet, and judging by the vast majority of these comments, I may not even use it once it gets here. This may cause me to look else where.

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

CGROSS — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 15:38:52 GMT

We ordered the SQUARE READER but it was worthless because no one has a phone that it adapts to these days - I-PHONES and SAMSUNG no longer have the headphone portal - so, we pretty much wasted $10.

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

LCNMNGMNT — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 16:00:50 GMT

What wld your best practices be for a media production /talent management agency?

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

Lonewolfbbqmke — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 18:19:50 GMT

I have only been with square for a short time so I haven't run into any of these issues yet but with this verification process I can see once every 6 months at most just to verify nothing has changed, any more than that is a waste of time and loss of money for our companies. They should verify through email like everyone in the world does instead of making you enter a chat room which is another waste of time. Use chat rooms for connecting with others and exchange questions and answers or even tips and ideas

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

JUYBoutique20 — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 18:41:51 GMT

If you're doing transactions on your phone, you can use the tap to pay option. I also think if you plug the reader into your computer, you can use it to swipe cards through the virtual terminal.

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

AAC1 — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 21:58:15 GMT

I totally agree. Of course it needs to be done initially but after that, there is no good reason require verification again after that. Especially for a business that's existed for years. A business tax ID number should be sufficient for verification, especially for a business that has a physical address.

Re: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about verifying your identity for your Square account!

AAC1 — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 22:01:18 GMT

Do they give you any sort of advance notice? Surely they must. To hold funds with no warning can be crippling to a small business, even more so if no advance notice is given to allow for planning. I am new to Square and this has me now thinking about looking for another option.