thread Re: American Express in Payments Troubleshooting

American Express

NN6 — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:31:18 GMT

How can we disable American Express payments on our Square account to ensure that clients only pay with Visa or Mastercard?

Re: American Express

TheRealChipA — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:36:23 GMT

Hi there @NN6 The short answer is you can’t. The longer answer is the you probably never will be able to. Square’s TOS requires that we anllow all card networks they support. I guess you could refuse Amex cards in person, but not in your online stores.

Now, can you enlighten us as to why you would want to exclude Amex card holders from being your customers, especially since those cards don’t cost you any more in fees?

Re: American Express

MudFire_Dex — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:39:31 GMT

We pay less using Square than our former payment processor that charged different rates for AMEX, Discover, Visa and MC reward cards, etc. It was a total pain from an accounting perspective to reconcile and having a level number that is known is so much better. @TheRealChipA do you find that also to be true?

Re: American Express

TheRealChipA — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:45:48 GMT

Completely

Re: American Express

NN6 — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:13:49 GMT

In our case, from what I understand with Square, American Express has higher processing fees, so we would like to avoid these additional charges.

Re: American Express

TheRealChipA — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:28:41 GMT

That is not true at all. We pay the same fees for all cards Square accepts. So even if you don’t accept Amex you will not pay lower fees with Square.

That’s is the beauty of companies like Square and its competitors. They level out the craziness of variable fees to a simple flat fee for most transactions. There are higher fees for things like online transactions, afterpay, manual card number entry, etc. But our base fee is the same for all card networks.

So whoever or whatever told you that was just plain wrong.

Re: American Express

TheRealChipA — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:51:38 GMT

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5068-what-are-square-s-fees

Re: American Express

NN6 — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:10:18 GMT

I realize that we were misinformed and that American Express actually carries the same fees. Thank you very much for your clarification.

Re: American Express

NN6 — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:11:30 GMT

Thank you very much for your help it's very clear!

Re: American Express

NN6 — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:12:49 GMT

Thank you and will noted!