Can a US account process payments in Canada?

[FloridaSunshine]

I signed up for Square quite a few years ago and received the card reader then but I've never used it. I'm traveling to Canada and would like to be able to use Square for product sales. Will the reader work with the chip cards? Thanks!

[Sean · Accepted solution]

@FloridaSunshine - Welcome to the Seller Community. To get going, you can swipe chip cards using our magstripe reader, but it does open you up to some liability. You can read more about the liability shift here. 

As for the second part of the question, this is where we may run into issues. Square merchants are only authorized to process payments within their country of activation. Since you have a US account, you wouldn't be able to process payments in Canada. You could manually enter the payments when you return, but then there is the risk of the card being declined (just not Interac debit cards, as they're not accepted). 

Hope this helps! 

[katieand]

Hi @justine - In order to have accounts in both Canada and the US, you'd have to meet all the requirements to be able to sign up for both (in the US, you need a social security number or TIN), and a US bank acccount.

We do have phone support for Canadian customers. Feel free to go through the contact flow to find the number and your customer code. You'll be able to speak to someone directly about this process. 

1. Click the link above

2. Click "Other"

3. Click "I don't see my issue"

4. Click "Call Support"

[MFYPRISM]

How do you transfer funds to a bank account that is in another country? The routing numbers are different. 

[_Violet]

Hi @MFYPRISM - Thanks for reaching out to us here on the Square Seller Community👋 Happy to provide you with some more information about linking your bank account.

You will need to link a United States bank account to process payments using a U.S. Square Account.

Square also requires a transactional bank account (an account that allows for both transfers and withdrawals) to support refunds or chargebacks. This means prepaid cards or online-only accounts (such as PayPal) aren’t supported at this time.

To get started with linking your bank account, please see the steps listed in this article from our Support Center.

I hope this information is helpful but please do let us know if you have any additional questions.

[AHigherQuality]

Nice! Thanks for the info I didn't even think of this but great info to have!

[EJ_]

Hi @1234567abc

I've moved your post over to this existing thread. 

You're only able to process payments within the country that you activated your account. So if you create a U.S. based Square account while you lived in Florida, that account wouldn't work at your new home in Canada. 

You'll need to create a new account using your new address and ideally your SIN as well (although this is optional, it does improve the chances of successful account creation). 

[CCSprout]

I have a Canadian Square account but I work with international clients online and charge in USD. Is there no possible away to create an invoice charging them in USD? I don't want to do the conversion myself and send them an invoice in CAD because it will look like they're spending more and seems silly. I already accept payments through PayPal as an option and it's easy that way because they can select USD currency. I was hoping to offer credit card as an option and do the same with Square. 

[katieand]

Hi @CCSprout - Right now there isn't a way to change the currency charged from your home country's currency. I do see how this would make running your business easier, so I'll be sure to pass on this feature request to the team responsible. Thanks for sharing your use case! 

[CCSprout]

Thank you! 

[Hiit100101]

Hello, I am looking to have USD option to charge the payment from my customers. Can you please help me have USD and CAD both options?

[MayaP]

Hi @Hiit100101 & @AHigherQuality,

Welcome to The Seller Community! That is a great question.

If you activated an account in the United States you can only process payments within the United States, not outside of it. And the same goes for Canada. 

You can have more than one Square Account. So technically you could have one for the United States, and another for Canada. You will need to provide the following information to process credit cards in each country:

United States:

Full legal name
SSN (Social Security Number)
U.S. home address
U.S. bank account

Canada:

Full legal name
Canadian home address linked to your name
Canadian bank account
SIN (optional, but will greatly expedite the activation process)

I know its a bit frustrating! Every country has their own banking regulations and in order to be compliant you cannot have one account and be able to process payments in multiple countries. 

[klw]

This reply was created from merging an existing thread: international card payments in Canada?

We are doing a card show in Canada and we live in New York. How do I take charges from Canada?

[GlassJudy]

You will not be able to process charged sales in Canada.  Your Square account will only work in the country in which you set it up.  Click here for information about how Square works as far as international sales are concerned.