EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorPaymentsHeadquarters: US

Square: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Square is a point-of-sale and payments platform for businesses. It combines card and contactless readers and terminals with software for registers in restaurant and retail settings, appointment booking, invoices and online ordering. The service is delivered as a combination of hardware and software, and businesses sign up with Square to use it. Square is operated by Block, Inc., a US company.

Block, Inc. has an address in Oakland, California, and is named as the provider in the general terms. For customers in the EU, Squareup International Ltd. in Dublin is named as the data controller. According to the privacy notice, personal data is processed and stored in the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, the EU and other countries, with standard contractual clauses for transfers. A data processing agreement is available, but there is no commitment to store data only within the EU. For a European organisation this means a US group under US jurisdiction, with data spread across several countries.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Square pre-selected
MastodonLinkedInBlueskyXEmail
Sovereignty score
27 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-350
    Hosting inside and outside Europe (US, EU, OTHER)
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
    Key management with a non-European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-615
    Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 10, 2026
HeadquartersUS (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decisionOnly for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingUS, EU, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
CategoryPayments
TypeProduct
Websitesquareup.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Square

The European alternatives to Square come from our knowledge base of over 6,200 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

99 European Payments vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is Square one of many dependencies?

Score your whole stack in about three minutes. Free, no account needed.

Assess your stack →View a sample report (opens in a new tab)

Why digital sovereignty matters with Square

Square is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

Square hosts data in US, EU, OTHER. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

Square is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Square together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Square?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Square include Adyen, Alma and Autopay. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Square?

Our list of EU alternatives to Square is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is Square GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Square is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU, OTHER. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 10, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Payments

Payments: Payment services, payment gateways, online payments and financial transactions. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

Also in this category

See all →
Open in the alternatives dashboardMissing a vendor? Submit itAre you this vendor? You can also become a sponsor on the Payments page — with no effect on your score
8 European alternatives to Square — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score