Buying a Restaurant: Will Its Existing Gift Cards Work on Your New Square Account?

Quick answer: not by themselves. Square doesn’t let a seller hand their account to a buyer when a business is sold, so you’ll take payments on a new account of your own, and a gift card issued on the seller’s account isn’t a card your account recognizes. Keeping the same registers, name and address doesn’t change that. Square staff on its community forum have described a manual process where Support moves issued cards over to a different account, most recently in January 2024. But that process isn’t in Square’s help center today, and sellers have gotten conflicting answers from support over the years. Treat it as unconfirmed until Square confirms it for your two accounts, in writing.

Square can’t answer the second question for you: who pays for those balances. The seller collected the money when each card was sold. If the cards move to your account, the balances move. The cash doesn’t. Who honors the cards and who funds them is a deal term to settle with your attorney and accountant before closing. Don’t promise guests anything until both questions have answers.

The Square pages and forum threads below were read October 30, 2026. The restaurant, accounts and numbers in the worked example are made up.

Two questions, four outcomes

Keep the platform question and the money question apart. Each one can come out yes or no, and you need a yes on both before you tell guests their cards will work.

What Square says today, and what it doesn’t

• The account stays with the seller. Square’s help article on transferring account ownership says account transfers aren’t supported when a business is sold, because they would scramble the new owner’s tax reporting: payments stay attributed to whatever taxpayer information is on the account when 1099-Ks go out. For new owners, it suggests downloading the old account’s sales history and asking the previous holder to deactivate. It says nothing about gift cards.
• Cards belong to the account that issued them. Square’s help says eGift cards work at all of your locations. Those are locations inside one account, and a buyer’s new account isn’t one of the seller’s locations. In a June 2025 forum thread, a seller whose two Square accounts paid into the same bank account found that a card issued on one read “Invalid” on the other.
• A manual move has been described, not documented. In January 2024, a Square community moderator told a new owner that Square has a process for moving issued gift cards between accounts, done manually by its Support team. Square’s community team said much the same in 2020 and 2021, in a thread a restaurant seller started. In November 2023, a moderator in Square’s Ireland community told a new owner to keep both accounts open while Support moved the cards. The same 2020 thread also has sellers told yes by one support agent and no by another, and one told in August 2023 that it wasn’t possible. A moderator’s reply the next day pointed to a different phone-only process and hedged on whether it would work. We couldn’t find a current help article describing the move, and Square’s help center search wasn’t working when we tried it.

So, as of today, these are unknown: whether Square still does this for a business sale, what it covers, how long it takes, whether there’s a fee, and what each owner has to do. Forum replies, even from Square staff, aren’t the same as Square’s published help. Don’t plan a closing date around them.

What to get from Square in writing

Each owner contacts Square from their own account. Nobody shares a login, and nobody sends full card numbers. Get the answers in an email or a support case you can refer back to, covering:

• Both accounts by business name, and that Square will move the seller’s issued gift cards to the buyer’s account for this sale.
• What moves: physical cards, eGift cards, and cards that were never activated. A 2022 staff post said the move was all or none, unactivated cards included. That’s old; get today’s answer.
• The cutoff: when the seller has to stop selling, reloading and redeeming cards on their account, and whether the moved cards stop working there afterward. A card that works on both accounts can be spent twice.
• Whether the seller’s account has to stay open until the move is finished.
• Timing and any fee. Don’t assume either one.
• Which outstanding total both of you should use before the move, and where the buyer sees the moved card count and total afterward.

Order matters here. Square’s ownership article tells new owners to have the previous holder deactivate, and the 2023 moderator said to keep both accounts open for the card move. The seller shouldn’t close anything until Square says in writing that the cards are done.

Four numbers that aren’t the same number

1. Face value outstanding. What guests can still spend at the cutoff. In the example below, that’s $6,147.50. Square’s gift cards page says its cards don’t expire, so don’t count on balances running out by any date.
2. Cash the seller already collected. When each card was sold or reloaded, the money went into the seller’s account, less Square’s fees. The same page lists a load fee of up to 2.5% on top of standard processing. The January 2024 moderator reply puts it plainly: the funds went to the original owner when the card was sold, so nothing more comes in when it’s redeemed. If you take over the cards, you serve those meals with no cash arriving.
3. What the deal says about funding. That might be a credit at closing, a smaller credit, a holdback, the seller staying responsible, or something else. The SBA’s planning guide, in its section on buying an existing business, lists a purchase price adjustment among the documents an attorney and accountant help you prepare. Nothing requires a dollar-for-dollar credit, and nothing here says what’s fair in your deal.
4. Your cost to serve the meal. A guest spending $50 of card balance orders $50 of menu that you make, serve and staff. In the example, say a $50 redemption costs the buyer $16.00 in food and packaging, before labor. That matters for your margin. It doesn’t set the deal number.

Skip two shortcuts. Don’t assume some share of cards will never be used. We don’t have a redemption rate for your restaurant and won’t make one up. And an unspent balance isn’t profit: guests can walk in with it at any time. Whether state gift card or unclaimed property rules reach those balances is a question for your attorney and accountant where you operate.

A worked handover

Fictional example. Larkspur Grill, its owners, its accounts, the Square confirmation and every number below are invented. Don’t read the confirmation as what Square will tell you.

The seller runs Larkspur Grill on Account A. The buyer has opened Account B. Their signed agreement says the buyer will honor the seller’s gift cards, and the seller will credit the buyer at closing with the verified outstanding balance as of Account A’s final close. Square has confirmed in writing that it will move all issued cards, never-activated ones included, after that close; that the cards stop working on Account A once moved; and that Account A stays open until the move is done.

During diligence, on Wednesday’s close, the seller’s outstanding figure was $6,480.00 on 118 cards with a balance. The restaurant kept trading until the final close, Sunday at 9:00 p.m.:

After the final close, the seller read the outstanding total on Account A: $6,147.50 on 119 cards, 78 physical ($4,210.00) and 41 eGift ($1,937.50). Computed and verified agree, so the difference is $0.00 and $6,147.50 goes in the closing credit. Had they used Wednesday’s figure, the credit would have been $332.50 more than the cards actually held, because redemptions from Thursday to Sunday outran new card sales.

Two more checks come before guests hear anything. First, after Square moves the cards, the buyer reads the count and total on Account B: 119 cards, $6,147.50. Second, the seller spot-checks a few cards on Account A before the move, and the buyer checks the same cards on Account B after. Square’s balance help shows a card’s balance next to its last four digits. That same screen offers Clear Balance and reload. Leave both alone. Clearing or reloading a card isn’t moving it, and it changes the total you just verified.

When the totals don’t match. Say Sunday’s reading had come back $6,172.50. That’s $25.00 more than the computed $6,147.50, and nobody can say why. Stop and find the transaction: a card sale, reload or refund missing from the list, or a redemption counted that didn’t go through. Don’t clear, reload or adjust a card to make the numbers agree. Don’t ask Square to start the move, and don’t let the seller close Account A, until the difference is $0.00 and both sides have signed off.

The drawer of blanks. Larkspur also has 200 plastic cards that were never sold. They hold $0.00 of guest money and aren’t in the total. They’re still a question for Square. Don’t sell or activate any of them on Account B until Square says the move is complete and those cards work there.

The registers. The buyer kept the seller’s Square hardware and signed it into Account B. That proves nothing about the cards. The same terminal doesn’t make Account A’s cards valid on Account B; only the move does.

Copy this handover record

Fill it in with your own numbers. The values shown are Larkspur’s.

GIFT CARD HANDOVER RECORD
(values shown are fictional)

Seller account (A):
  seller's login only
Buyer account (B):
  buyer's login only
Square account transfer used: NO
  (not supported in a sale)

SQUARE, IN WRITING
Case ref (last 4 only):
Physical cards move:  YES / NO
eGift cards move:     YES / NO
Unactivated move:     YES / NO
Cards stop on A after:
  YES / NO / UNKNOWN
A stays open until:
Fee:            Timing:

CUTOFF
Final close on A: Sun 9:00 p.m.
Sales/reloads on A stopped:
  YES / NO

RECONCILIATION   Cards    Amount
Snapshot (Wed)     118 $6,480.00
+ New cards        +15   $750.00
+ Reloads            0   $100.00
+ Refunds to cards   0    $32.00
- Redemptions      -14 $1,214.50
= Computed         119 $6,147.50
Verified on A      119 $6,147.50
Difference                 $0.00
  Not $0.00? STOP. Find it.
Physical            78 $4,210.00
eGift               41 $1,937.50
Blanks, never sold 200     $0.00
Verified on B
  after move       119 $6,147.50

DEAL CLAUSE
Honors the cards:     BUYER
Funds the balances:   SELLER
How: credit at closing
Amount:                $6,147.50
Both sides signed off: YES / NO

GUESTS TOLD
Nothing until every line above
  is filled in and matches.

NEVER IN THIS RECORD
Full card numbers, PINs, guest
names or emails, anyone's login

When to stop

• Square hasn’t confirmed the move for your two accounts in writing. An old forum answer, a phone call nobody wrote down, or a terminal that happens to work doesn’t count.
• The deal doesn’t say who honors the cards and who funds them.
• The computed and verified cutoff totals don’t match, or the total on Account B after the move doesn’t match the cutoff.
• Anyone asks for full card numbers, PINs, a customer export of card details or a Square login. A full number is enough to spend a balance: Square takes eGift cards by entering the 16-digit code. Keep full numbers out of email, shared spreadsheets, chats and AI tools. The last four digits are enough for a spot-check.
• Someone suggests running your restaurant as a location or a team member on the seller’s account to keep the cards working. Square’s ownership article says payments are reported under the taxpayer information on the account, so your sales would be reported as the seller’s.
• Someone suggests clearing balances on the old account and issuing matching cards on yours. That isn’t a transfer. It changes balances guests are holding and the totals you verified. Take it to your attorney, your accountant and Square instead of doing it.

Related reading

For everything else in the purchase, start with buying an existing restaurant: verify what you are buying. If the sale comes with a new business entity, does changing your restaurant’s name mean you need a new EIN? covers the federal tax ID side. Buying in New York? See whether you can inherit the seller’s sales tax bill. And if you already run Square and the new place will be a second location on your own account, what Square Plus charges for a second location covers the monthly fee. The seller’s cards still sit on the seller’s account either way.

Sources: Square’s help articles on transferring account ownership, accepting gift cards and checking a gift card balance; Square’s gift cards page; the SBA’s guide to buying an existing business; and the Square Seller Community threads dated above, from 2020 to 2025. All were read October 30, 2026. We haven’t tested any Square account, and nothing here is legal, tax or accounting advice for your deal.