Handling payments, refunds, and exchanges with the Shopify Tap & Chip Card Reader

On this page, you can find information about using the Shopify Tap & Chip Card Reader for transaction processing, including managing different payment types and executing refunds and exchanges.

Note

The Tap & Chip Card Reader is exclusively available in the United States. For businesses located outside of the United States, review the supported card readers for Shopify POS by region help article to find a card reader that's compatible and available for your specific region.

Supported payment types

You can use the Tap & Chip Card Reader to accept payments from the following payment types:

• Visa and Visa Debit
• Mastercard and Debit Mastercard
• American Express
• Discover (only for locations in United States, Canada, and United Kingdom)
• Diners Club (only for locations in United States, Canada, and United Kingdom)
• JCB (only for locations in United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand)
• Union Pay (only for locations in United States and Canada)
• eftpos (Australia only)
• Interac (Canada only)

Most national debit cards such as Interac, girocard, or eftpos cards that are co-badged with Visa or Mastercard can process payments outside the card issuer's country using Visa and Mastercard. Some co-badged debit cards that don't process payments through Mastercard or Visa might not work outside the card issuer's country.

On hardware that supports contactless payments, customers might also present any supported card brand that they've loaded on a digital wallet such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay.

Where to buy the Tap & Chip Card Reader

The Tap & Chip Card Reader is available only in the United States and can be purchased from the Shopify Hardware Store in supported countries.

Accept a tap payment with the Tap & Chip Card Reader

You can use the Tap & Chip Card Reader to accept contactless tap payments.

For some card types, contactless payments might be limited to purchases under a specified amount. To make purchases for larger amounts, a customer can insert the card.

Steps:

1. From the Shopify POS, tap Checkout. If the Tap & Chip Card Reader is connected, then Shopify POS displays Tap or insert card and the leftmost light on the reader should turn on.
2. Tap the contactless payment card or device on the face of the card reader and hold it in place until the four blue notification lights display. When Shopify POS displays a Payment approved message, the transaction is complete.

Accept a chip payment with the Tap and Chip Card Reader

You can use the Tap & Chip Card Reader to accept chip card payments.

Note

Chip and PIN payments aren't supported in the United States. Customers might be asked to provide a signature on the screen when inserting a card.

Steps:

1. From the Shopify POS, tap Checkout. If the Tap & Chip Card Reader is connected, then Shopify POS displays Tap or insert card and the leftmost light on the reader should turn on.
2. Allow the customer to insert their card. The chip needs to face up, towards the Shopify logo.
3. If an account selection is required, then the customer must select if they're using their checking or savings account. Depending on the bank that the customer uses, they might also be prompted to select which language to complete the transaction in.
4. Allow the customer to discretely enter their PIN or signature on the entry screen. After the customer completes the entry of their PIN, they need to tap the green button with the checkmark icon.
5. The customer can remove their card as soon as Remove card displays on the screen.
6. When the transaction is successful, choose whether to provide a receipt, and then tap Done. The POS app completes the transaction and goes back to the home screen.

Tip

Customers enter their PIN directly on an iPad or iPhone device in Canada. To avoid unwanted contact with the screen, consider providing a Stylus pen for your customers to use when interacting with your POS device.

Refunding or exchanging with the Tap and Chip Card Reader

Note

This feature is not currently available on Android devices.

Refunds are available for Interac debit. To prevent fraud, the refund must be made in person with the debit card present. If the customer used an Interac card attached to a digital wallet, such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, then the original device used must be present. You can't refund a purchase to a different payment than what was originally used, nor can you refund the purchase in cash. Refunds can't be completed through the Shopify admin.

Exchanges can only be made by merchants who use Shopify POS Pro.