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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.

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Supported payment types

You can use the Shopify 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.

Considerations for payments with the Shopify Tap & Chip Card Reader

Card swipe isn't supported. If a customer can't tap or insert their card, then you can use manual card entry. Manual card entry applies the online credit card rate, which is higher than the in-person credit card rate.

Accept a tap payment with the Shopify Tap & Chip Card Reader

You can use the Shopify 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 Shopify POS, tap Checkout, and then choose one of the following options:

  • If only one card reader is connected to your POS device, then tap Card.

  • If multiple card readers are connected to your POS device, then tap Tap & Chip.

  1. 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 Shopify Tap & Chip Card Reader

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

Steps:

  1. From Shopify POS, tap Checkout, and then choose one of the following options:

  • If only one card reader is connected to your POS device, then tap Card.

  • If multiple card readers are connected to your POS device, then tap Tap & Chip.

  1. Allow the customer to insert their card. The chip needs to face up, towards the Shopify logo.
  2. 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.
  3. Allow the customer to 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.
  4. The customer can remove their card as soon as Remove card displays on the screen.
  5. When the transaction is successful, choose whether to provide a receipt, and then tap Done. Shopify POS completes the transaction and goes back to the home screen.

Refund or exchange with the Shopify Tap & Chip Card Reader

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.