Payment Processing for Hospitality at a Glance
UK hospitality businesses — hotels, pubs, restaurants, and event venues — have payment requirements that go beyond basic card acceptance. Pre-authorisation holds for no-shows, tab management across a busy bar, split bills, tipping rules under the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023, and omnichannel payments for room bookings all require specific capabilities. This guide covers the main providers for UK hospitality in 2026.
- Square for Restaurants — Best overall for independent pubs, bars, and cafes
- Dojo — Best for mid-market hospitality with volume pricing
- Lightspeed Restaurant — Best for multi-site and complex operations
- Worldpay — Best for hotels and established hospitality groups
- Zettle by PayPal — Best for the smallest operations
Hospitality Payment Providers Compared
| Provider | Transaction fee | Monthly cost | Tab management | Tips Act support | Contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Square for Restaurants | 1.75% | £49 (Restaurants tier) | Yes | Per-server tip reporting | None |
| Dojo | From 1.4% (negotiated) | £20–25 terminal | Via EPOS integration | On-screen tip prompts | Monthly |
| Lightspeed Restaurant | Negotiated | From £189 | Yes (advanced) | Staff tip allocation | Annual |
| Worldpay | IC+ (negotiated) | From £20 | Via EPOS integration | Via EPOS partner | 18–36 months |
| Zettle by PayPal | 1.75% | £0 | Basic | Basic tipping | None |
Rates correct as of May 2026. Dojo, Lightspeed, and Worldpay rates are indicative — contact providers for quotes based on your volume and setup.
Best Payment Processing for UK Hospitality Businesses
Best for Independents: Square for Restaurants
If you run a single-site pub, bar, or cafe, Square is the lowest-friction starting point. The free POS tier covers basic card acceptance; the Square for Restaurants plan (£49/month) adds course management, kitchen display integration, floor planning, and per-server tip reporting. Card processing is 1.75% in-person with no additional monthly fee on the payment side. Pre-auth support handles tabs: a £50–100 hold protects against walk-outs. No long-term contract.
Settlement is next business day. Hardware ranges from a £19 Square Reader up to the Square Register (around £600) for a full countertop setup.
Best for Mid-Market Hospitality: Dojo
Above £15,000 per month in card turnover, Dojo’s negotiated rate — typically 1.4–1.6% at hospitality volumes — undercuts Square’s 1.75%. Dojo terminals run on 4G with built-in receipt printers, settle next business day, and display tipping prompts on the customer-facing screen — useful for compliant tip recording under the 2023 Act. Dojo integrates with Lightspeed, Epos Now, and other EPOS platforms for a semi-integrated setup.
Best for Multi-Site Operations: Lightspeed Restaurant
Lightspeed Restaurant (from £189/month) handles multi-till venues at peak service: floor planning, course management, kitchen display, and granular reporting by section, staff member, and time period. Lightspeed Payments (powered by Adyen) handles card processing at negotiated rates. Staff tip allocation integrates with Lightspeed’s shift management, making Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act compliance auditable.
Best for Hotels and Hospitality Groups: Worldpay
Hotels handling room bookings, restaurant payments, MOTO for phone reservations, and online direct bookings benefit from a single acquirer covering all channels. Worldpay’s IC+ pricing at volume (typically 0.6–1.2% effective at £30,000+ per month) beats bundled providers. Omnichannel reporting consolidates all payment channels. Contracts run 18–36 months — read the exit clause carefully before signing.
Best for the Smallest Operations: Zettle by PayPal
For a single-staff cafe or food truck, Zettle by PayPal is the cheapest setup: flat 1.75% rate, free app, hardware from around £59, no contract. Tipping is supported but not granular — fine for a cafe that pools tips, less suited to a full-service restaurant requiring per-server records.
Key Hospitality Payment Considerations
The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023
Since October 2024, the Act requires all qualifying tips, gratuities, and discretionary service charges to be passed to staff in full, with records kept for three years. Your payment processor must be able to capture tip amounts per transaction and associate them with the server or staff member involved. Dojo’s terminal prompts and Lightspeed’s staff allocation module both provide compliant records. Square for Restaurants provides per-server tip reports. Verify that your chosen tier includes this functionality before signing up.
Pre-Authorisation and No-Shows
Hotels and restaurants with deposit policies use pre-authorisation to hold a card amount without capturing funds. If the customer attends, the hold is released or captured; if they no-show, the held amount can be captured within the scheme’s time window (typically seven days for lodging). Pre-auth chargebacks are higher-risk than standard transactions — keep clear written cancellation policies and digital communication records as evidence.
Split Bills and Tab Management
Split billing — dividing a bill by item or evenly across multiple cards — is standard in Square for Restaurants and Lightspeed. Dojo handles splits via EPOS integration. For venues where splitting is common, test the workflow during any trial period. Poorly implemented splits slow service and frustrate customers.
Settlement Speed and Cash Flow
Weekend and bank holiday takings need to clear quickly for payroll and supplier payments. Square, Dojo, and Lightspeed Payments all offer next-business-day settlement. Worldpay settles at T+2 to T+3 on standard terms, with faster tiers available. Confirm the daily cut-off time — transactions after the cut-off count as the next day.
Hospitality Payment Fees and Costs to Watch
Monthly minimum charges. Some acquirer contracts include a monthly minimum service charge (MMSC) — you pay the minimum even if your transaction fees fall below it. Seasonal venues (summer beach cafes, Christmas market stalls) are most exposed — check whether the MMSC applies in your quiet months.
Card-not-present rates. Online deposits and phone bookings (MOTO) attract higher rates than in-person — typically 1.5–2.5% versus 1.4–1.75%. If you regularly take remote bookings, confirm your MOTO rate separately from your in-person rate.
Hardware costs. Countertop terminals, handheld devices for table service, and kitchen display screens each add to the hardware bill. Model the full hardware cost over a three-year period before comparing software subscription prices.
PCI compliance fees. Some providers charge a monthly PCI compliance fee (£2–10). Confirm whether this is included in the quoted monthly fee or added on top.
Final Verdict: Which Hospitality Payment Provider Should You Choose?
For most independent UK pubs, bars, cafes, and restaurants, Square for Restaurants is the best place to start. At £49/month with a flat 1.75% rate and no contract, it bundles course management, floor plans, tab pre-auth, and per-server tip reporting — the last of which makes Tips Act compliance straightforward. Below roughly £15,000 a month in card takings, nothing here is simpler or cheaper to run.
Scale and channel mix change the answer. Above about £15,000 a month, Dojo’s negotiated 1.4–1.6% rate and fast on-screen tipping undercut a flat rate. Lightspeed Restaurant is the pick for multi-site venues that need deep floor and staff management, and Worldpay suits hotels and groups wanting one acquirer across rooms, restaurant, and online at IC+ pricing. For a single-staff cafe or food truck, Zettle by PayPal is the cheapest way in.
Default to Square for Restaurants for a single-site independent. Move to Dojo for mid-market volume, Lightspeed for multi-site operations, Worldpay for hotels and groups, and Zettle for the smallest setups.
Frequently Asked Questions
Card schemes typically allow pre-auth holds of seven days for lodging transactions. Most UK hotels pre-auth at check-in for the stay value plus an incidental amount, and capture or release at checkout. If the guest leaves without issue, the hold drops off within 7–14 days depending on the issuing bank. Confirm your acquirer’s specific window before building a long pre-auth period into your operations.
Not if you use an omnichannel provider. Worldpay, Lightspeed Payments, and Square all support card-present, online, and MOTO under a single acquirer relationship. Reporting consolidates across channels and you negotiate one rate structure. For hotels and event venues handling multiple payment types, this is typically the right architecture.
You need a system that captures the tip amount per transaction, associates it with the server or staff member involved, and retains that record for three years. Your payment terminal or EPOS must support per-server tip recording — not just a total tips figure at end of day. Dojo, Lightspeed, and Square for Restaurants all provide compliant records. Check the specific tier you are purchasing before committing — basic tiers may not include the granularity required.
No. It is illegal for UK consumer-facing businesses to add a surcharge for paying by credit or debit card, under the Payment Services Regulations 2017. You can, however, offer a cash discount — framing the card price as the standard price and cash as a discounted alternative is permitted, provided it is clearly communicated. Business-to-business payments have different rules.
Review Methodology and Disclaimer
How we reviewed these providers. We assessed each option on the factors that decide cost and fit for a hospitality business specifically: the card transaction rate (and whether it drops with volume), software and hardware cost, tab management and split-bill handling, pre-authorisation support for no-shows, and — critically — whether the system captures per-server tip records for Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 compliance. We also weighed settlement speed, since weekend takings need to clear for payroll and suppliers. Every published fee and feature was verified against the providers’ own UK pages in May 2026; Dojo, Lightspeed, and Worldpay price on quote, so those figures are indicative and confirmed on application.
What this guide does not do. We have not run each system through a live service for this review, and we do not give regulated or legal advice — confirm your own Tips Act and pre-authorisation obligations with the provider and, where needed, a professional. Rates, plans, and compliance features change, so check the current tier before you sign, and test tab, split-bill, and tip workflows during any trial. Payment processors and acquirers are not deposit-takers, so funds held with them are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
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