🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Orders (Can

JTPets — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 16:28:24 GMT

Hi Square Team & Sellers,

I’m reporting what appears to be a bug or limitation in how Square for Retail POS handles sales tax on shipped orders within Canada — especially affecting cross-province shipping and 3rd-party marketplace sales.

🧾 Background

I'm based in Ontario (13% HST).
I'm starting to sell through Walmart Marketplace, which:
- Collects the full customer payment (incl. taxes)
- Charges based on the shipping province (e.g., GST + QST for Quebec)
- Pays me the net after fees

To keep reporting clean, I manually enter these sales into Square for Retail, but I'm seeing some serious issues.

⚠️Issues

1. Destination-Based Tax Not Applying on Shipped Orders

I created a customer with a Quebec shipping address, marked the order as shipment, and added shipping fees.
Square still applies Ontario's 13% HST, not the correct 5% GST + 9.975% QST (14.975% total) for Quebec.
According to Square’s documentation, it should base tax on the destination province for shipped orders:

🔗Square Help – Create and Manage Your Tax Settings (Canada)

“For shipped orders (Square Online or Retail POS), we apply destination-based tax if you’re registered in that province.”

2. Shipping Fees Not Taxed (Even in Ontario)

In Ontario, shipping fees should be taxed at 13% HST if the product is taxable.
But in Square for Retail, shipping lines are not taxed — even with “Apply tax to shipping” enabled.

3. Confusing or Misleading Tax Registration Settings

In my Tax Registrations, it says:

“All Canadian provinces and territories” are active.

But destination-based tax is clearly not being applied, raising the question:

❓Do I still need to add each province manually?
If so, why does Square say they’re already “active”?

🧩 Why This Matters

This undermines tax compliance when shipping out of province or syncing external marketplace sales into Square.
It also creates inconsistent behaviour between the Square Online store and the Retail POS app.
Tax on shipping is being skipped, even in provinces like Ontario where it legally applies.

✅Suggestions

1. Fix Retail POS Tax Logic for Shipped Orders
→ Respect the shipping address and apply the correct provincial tax automatically.

2. Ensure Tax is Applied to Shipping Fees
→ This should follow standard tax rules in each province when the product is taxable.

3. Clarify What “All Provinces Active” Means
→ If destination-based tax needs a manual province registration, update the language in the UI.

4. Add a “Marketplace Sale” Mode
→ Let sellers enter tax-collected transactions (e.g. Walmart, Amazon), specify the tax collected, and avoid distorting Square’s tax reports.

Would love to hear from the Square team or other Canadian sellers.
Is this a bug in Square for Retail? Or just a feature gap?

Thanks
@isabelle @Summer2024 for vis

Re: 🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Ord

JTPets — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 14:27:45 GMT

No update on this?

Re: 🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Ord

RusticSoulNL — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 22:59:37 GMT

Any remedy for this? I'm just realizing the limitations as we are just starting to ship to other provinces. I spent 2 hours on square support being transferred to 7 differnt support agents and no one could explain why there are places to fill in information for each province, mentions tax enrolments etc, yet the optrion is not there to actually use it. so frusterating.

Re: 🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Ord

VanKalkerFarms — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:10:26 GMT

What a great and detailed post with all the documentation needed. A bug hunter's dream report.

@JTPets did this get anywhere or is it still stuck in the back burner of coming soon compliance?

Re: 🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Ord

JTPets — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:15:29 GMT

Not addressed

Re: 🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Ord

tranguyen — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 17:51:51 GMT

Sorry I missed this @JTPets! I'm not too sure so I've reached out to our teams to check whether this is a bug or a feature gap. I'll be sure to follow up on this thread when I have more to share.

thread Re: 🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Ord in Payments Troubleshooting

🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Orders (Can

🧾 Background

⚠️Issues

🧩 Why This Matters

✅Suggestions

Re: 🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Ord

Re: 🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Ord

Re: 🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Ord

Re: 🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Ord

Re: 🔧 Bug Report: Shipping Tax Not Applied & Incorrect Provincial Tax on Retail POS Shipped Ord