thread Re: Credit card surcharge in Payments Troubleshooting

Is it possible to pass on Square's fees to customers?

Wembleycricket — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 09:15:06 GMT

We are hoping to pass on square's fees to our customers when they pay with card, is there an easy way to do this in the app?

Re: Credit card surcharge

Callum — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 04:41:44 GMT

Hi @Wembleycricket, and welcome to the community!

At the moment, there isn't a surcharging option in the Square Point of Sale app, and it's not currently on our roadmap for development. Should you decide to apply a surcharge, it is your responsibility adhere to Australian regulations as set out by the ACCC.

We would always recommend that if you're wanting to pass on the cost of our fees to your customers, we'd recommend factoring this into the final pricing of your product or services.

Re: Credit card surcharge

Bormsa — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 06:55:42 GMT

We are also a sports club and have added the surcharge as a "tax" and renamed it "credit card processing fee"

Re: Credit card surcharge

Seamus — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 00:57:04 GMT

Hey @Bormsa,

Just a heads up that if you have GST turned on, any custom tax you apply to the cost of what you're selling is based on a pre-GST amount, not the entire amount of a sale. This option is intended for things like alcohol/tobacco tax that is applied on a pre-GST basis.

Re: Credit card surcharge

Paulie — Mon, 14 May 2018 21:36:46 GMT

My GST swith was on, and I currently did some labour for a client, and I am not registered for gst because my income is below the gst limite, so I was short changed in the total of my work, were does my gst go and how does it reach the ATO ?, and how can I recieve it back to my account ?

thank you

Paul form Western Australia

Re: Credit card surcharge

Seamus — Tue, 15 May 2018 00:40:03 GMT

Hi @Paulie,

Thanks for getting in touch.

The good news is that you won't have been short changed for the transaction - Square does not take tax on behalf of the ATO, and we transfer the full amount of your transactions (minus our card processing fees) into your bank account in your deposits.

We do display a net sales figure minus GST in your emailed sales report - however this amount is NOT deducted from your deposit. We highlight net sales minus GST for bookkeeping purposes only - so you know how much to put away for tax if you have it turned on.

So having GST turned on or off has no practical impact on the amount of money you'll receive from transactions processed through Square. They key difference is that if GST is turned on your receipts will mention that the amount is GST inclusive (and we'll show this in your sales reports as above). If you're not registered to take GST then you won't need to set anything aside for the ATO - you'll just need to remember that the GST amount in your first transaction was included erroneously.

By default, GST is turned on for Australian Square accounts. If you'd like to turn GST off, simply follow the steps at https://squareup.com/help/au/en/article/5061-add-goods-and-services-tax-gst-and-modify-your-tax-settings.

Hopefully this all makes sense, let me know if you have any questions or need clarification 👍

Re: Credit card surcharge

Tracie18 — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 22:15:26 GMT

Hi Square, I would also like to show support for adding the square Fee into the charged amount. This would be very handy. As we take both cash and card transactions I currently will need to load each item in twice to cover for the card fee but still give cash a different amount.

Any my suggestions on how to make this simpler?

Re: Credit card surcharge

Seamus — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 00:40:31 GMT

Hey @Tracie18,

Thanks for reaching out!

At the moment Square doesn't have an automatic surcharge feature - we actually advocate for going completely surcharge free, and simply build card processing costs into the overall price of your goods/services in the same way you would for general business operating costs such as staff, rent and utilities.

If you would like to pass on credit card processing charges to your customers, you can use the following to manually calculate what you would charge.

For transactions put through a Square Reader at 1.9%:
Transaction amount divided by 0.981
e.g. $100 / 0.981 = $101.94 - you'd add $1.94 as a 1.9% surcharge.

For “Card not Present” transactions at 2.2%:
Transaction amount divided by 0.978
E.g. $100 / 0.978 = $102.25 - you'd add $2.25 as a 2.2% surcharge.

Why Wouldn’t I Just Add 1.9% or 2.2%?
Square’s card processing fees are based on the overall transaction amount, so if you’re adding $1.90 to a $100 transaction, the transaction becomes $101.90, not $100. Using the above formulas accounts for this small change to the overall fee on transactions if you’re adding a surcharge.

Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions!

Re: Credit card surcharge

Status888 — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 09:18:29 GMT

Hi Seamus,

I believe the US version has an option to add the Credit Card Surcharge by going through the Dashboard, Business, Device and so forth but this is not available in the Australian version?

Re: Credit card surcharge

Arie — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 04:51:22 GMT

Hey @Status888,

Thanks for writing in and welcome to the Seller Community 😊 👋

It sounds like your referring to Services Charges, which are currently available in the US only. At this time, this wouldn't work as a fee surcharge option in the US, either - as service charges can be either percentage, or dollar based, but the US processing fee for card payments on a Square Reader, for example, is 2.6% + 10 cents. For now, using the workaround @Seamus shared above would still be the best way to calculate a surcharge. I know how popular the surcharge function surcharge is, and want to assure you we're still advocating for this request!

Re: Credit card surcharge

splurben — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 14:01:50 GMT

For very many of us, the surcharge isn't the issue. For those of us using integrated products, we have edit every single transaction or they won't reconcile, I use Xero and I have to edit every single transaction before I can reconcile.

I want the surcharge included so that the amount that comes back from Square integration will match the invoices in my Xero system. This ain't rocket science, we go to Xero and Square to make our lives easier.

It appears that Square has an axe to grind with integrated products like Xero and integrating surcharges is a bugbear in some executive wigs at 'Corporate'.

Also, the ACCC regulations are a complete non-sequitur in this argument because is you just added the option for surcharges to be automated, there would be no question that ACCC regulations are being followed.

Re: Credit card surcharge

LunchBar — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 23:14:34 GMT

So what happens if they pay cash? Are you saying we need 2 price points in the system for each product - 1 showing with a surcharge and 1 without?

Re: Credit card surcharge

Arie — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 03:47:35 GMT

We actually suggest to not implement any surcharges, @LunchBar, and factoring card processing costs into the overall pricing, like you would for other operating costs e.g utilities, rent, or staff.

Re: Credit card surcharge

pizzeriaarlos — Sun, 20 Mar 2022 08:48:20 GMT

hi what happens when people pay cash? as i did the same with a tax but now it appears when people pay cash

Re: Credit card surcharge

Arie — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 02:02:26 GMT

Hi @pizzeriaarlos,

I noticed it's your first post, welcome to our community! Thanks for writing in.

We don't have a workaround for this scenario at the moment. We generally suggest to factor card processing costs into your overall pricing structure like other overhead costs e.g staffing, or rent. We're still tracking automatic card surcharges as a feature request, and will keep you updated via this thread.

Re: Credit card surcharge

splurben — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 04:31:41 GMT

90% of my customers pay by Direct Bank Transfer. So I don't have to raise my rates to compensate for the few transactions that have the very fair Square surcharge. I can't really see a way around this at this point. If the surcharge is added on to the transaction from Xero invoices, then the customers' invoices won't match their payment amount, that's just making more similar work for your customers. I just add 5% on the the invoices for my customers that prefer to use credit/debit cards. I'm charging for the extra administration time it takes to get Square to reconcile to Xero as every single transaction has to be adjusted. I charge $90/hour and it takes about 5 minutes for each one, so that's fair. It's on the invoice as an Transaction Administration Surcharge.

Re: Credit card surcharge

Dynamo — Sat, 14 May 2022 12:09:09 GMT

Do you acept cash aswell and if so how do you make the card tax only apply to card transactions and not the cash ones

Re: Credit card surcharge

Laurie_ — Mon, 16 May 2022 05:04:43 GMT

Hi @Dynamo this is a great question!

You can certainly process a cash payment using Square. You can select cash as a payment type and Square will make a record of the transaction, however, it's important to note we don't capture the payment as this is a physical exchange in this instance.

You can easily remove tax from cash transactions by following these steps:

1. Once you've entered in your custom amount/items, select Review sale.
2. On the next screen we will see your custom amount/items and tax underneath. Press and hold on to the tax and this will load another screen displaying the tax.
3. Select the red 'x' to remove the tax, then select Save.

4. You will return to the previous screen where the transaction will show as Tax (Off).

Let us know if you have further questions here.

Re: Credit card surcharge

Mmp74 — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 13:20:30 GMT

I am really disappointed thta this and many threads like this have been around for years and Square continues not to listen to the people who use it!

For a big tech company it seems to not be able to add a button for the card processing fee or even a % button is a bit weak. Many other companies seem to be able to incorporate this. Zellar is one, Smartie is another.

Can this not be raised to higher people or even do a survey on this topic.

I have been a member for many years and do enjoy using square but this form style does not solve any issues.

cheers

Re: Credit card surcharge

BernadetteA — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 23:51:03 GMT

I do not have any updates at this time, @Mmp74

I did stumble across this Square Fee Calculator that was shared through the support teams that may help you out for now.

Thanks for sharing you feedback!