Deactivate Your Square Business
One of the great things about Square is that we only charge per transaction, so there’s no cost to keep your account open if you’re a seasonal business, using our subscription products, or switching to a new processor.
Note: If you choose to deactivate your Square account, you will not be able to access any of your payment history or account information, and any team members will be removed from your account. In addition to deactivating your account, you must cancel any active subscriptions linked to your account.
Before You Deactivate
We recommend doing a few things before you deactivate your Square account. Learn more details below.
Export your payment history
Once you’ve closed your account, you won’t have access to your payment history. For your records, you may want to download your payment history before following the steps below to deactivate your account. If you have pending transfers, you won’t be able to deactivate your account until Square sends these funds to your linked bank account.
To download your payment history:
Go to Money > Balance from your online Square Dashboard.
Click View all transfers.
Use the date selector to refine a date range. Click This Year or Last Year, then use the arrows to navigate between years. Note: Click the middle of the date selector to see a full calendar view.
Select All Locations, or click the drop-down menu to choose locations to review manually.
Click Export to download a CSV file to your computer, which you can open using Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets or another common spreadsheet software.
Export your Item Library
Exporting your Item Library is a good idea if you plan on creating a new inventory list with another point of sale system. It's also great to keep for your records. To export your item library into an Excel (XLSX) or CSV file:
Go to Items & orders > Items from your Square Dashboard.
Click Actions > Export Library at the top-right of the page.
Select whether you’d like to export the file as Excel or CSV.
Click Export. A spreadsheet will download to your computer which you can open using Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets or another common spreadsheet software.
Export your Customer Directory
You can export your entire customer list directly from your online Square Dashboard. This may come in handy if you’ve been collecting customer information you want to reference in the future. To start:
Go to Customers > Directory on your online Square Dashboard.
Click Export Customers.
Select the groups you’d like to export customers from. If a customer exists in multiple groups, they will only be exported once.
Click Export.
A CSV file will download to your computer, which you can open using Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or another common spreadsheet software.
Cancel your Square Online subscriptions and services
If your Square account uses Square Online, make sure to cancel all of the subscriptions and services in your Square Online account from the Square Online overview page before deactivating your Square account. This will ensure you won't continue getting charged for Square Online services you are no longer using.
Learn how to Manage Square Online services and subscriptions for more information on cancelling Square Online services.
Note: Your Square Online account is an extension of your primary Square account with separate billing management. Deactivating your Square account will not deactivate your Square Online services and subscriptions, so be sure to manually cancel those first before proceeding with deactivation.
What to do with your Square Hardware
Square Reader, Square Terminal, Square Register and other third-party hardware are universal, so they don’t store any personal or account information, and can be used with any Square account.
Square hardware is not linked to any specific account holder or bank account, nor do they need to be activated. Your personal information will not be compromised if you sell, recycle, or share your hardware between Square accounts.
What happens to your data
For more information, please visit the following pages: Security, Privacy and our User Agreement (Sec. 13).
Deactivate Your Account
There is no cost associated with keeping your Square account open. However, if you are still interested in deactivating your Square Point of Sale account, you can do so from your online Square Dashboard. Once ready to start:
Go to Account & Settings on your Square Dashboard.
Click Business information > About my business.
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Under "Deactivate your business," click Deactivate your business.
Select your reason for deactivation, add any additional comments (optional), and then click Continue.
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Enter the password, then click Confirm.
If you have 2-Step Verification on your account, your verification code will either be texted to you or you can use your authenticator app.
If you do not have 2-Step Verification on your account, your verification code will be emailed to the email address associated with your Square account.
Important to note
Once deactivated, you will not be able to reactivate your existing account. You will need to create a new Square account should you decide to begin using Square again.
Make sure you’ve exported all the necessary data prior to deactivation.
Square accounts can be created for free, and you’re welcome to create a new one at any time.
We’re sad to see you go, but are happy to have been a part of your growing business. We wish you the very best and hope to work with you again in the future.