Who owns Square?
Square is owned by Block (the United States, NYSE: XYZ).[1]
Evidence: Block, Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2026-02-26, SEC EDGAR, 26 February 2026. Verified from filings; last checked .
Key facts
- Current owner
- Block, Inc. verified
- Owner HQ
- 🇺🇸 United States, Oakland, California
- Origin
- 🇺🇸 United States, San Francisco, California
- Founded
- 2009
- Category
- Internet & digital › Digital services › Payments
- Parent ticker
- NYSE: XYZ
- Last verified
- · 1 sources
About Square
Square sells card readers, tills and payment processing to small businesses, and its original white plastic dongle made accepting cards possible for traders who could never have justified a merchant terminal. The reader was designed by Jim McKelvey, a glassblower who had lost a sale because he could not take a customer's card, and it plugged into the headphone socket of a phone.
What Block's annual report says about Square
Sentences about Square from Block's latest annual filing[1], copied word for word.
Square Ecosystem We started Block with the Square ecosystem in February 2009 to enable businesses to accept card payments, a critical capability that had previously been inaccessible to many businesses.
We have since expanded Square into a comprehensive commerce ecosystem that provides more than 30 distinct products and services to help our sellers start, run, and grow their businesses.
These attributes differentiate Square in a fragmented industry that traditionally forced sellers to stitch together products and services from multiple vendors, and often rely on inefficient non-digital processes and tools.
How often Block names Square in its annual report
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named more often than it was three years earlier.
Ownership timeline of Square
Where Square sits in Block
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Block ownership tree →
See the full Block brand portfolio (4) →
Other brands owned by Block
Block controls 4 brands on Brandtree, 4 of them in internet & digital.
Also in internet & digital
Other brands in payments, and who owns them
The 36 brands in payments on Brandtree belong to 19 owners. The largest is PayPal, with 4; Block has 3.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| GoPay | GoTo | 🇮🇩 Indonesia |
| Kaspi Alaqan | Kaspi.kz | 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan |
| Braintree | PayPal | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Rakuten Card | Rakuten | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| AzamPay | Bakhresa | 🇹🇿 Tanzania |
| GrabPay | Grab | 🇸🇬 Singapore |
| Mercado Crédito | MercadoLibre | 🇺🇾 Uruguay |
| Uzum Bank | Uzum | 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan |
About the owner: Block
Block is a publicly listed company headquartered in Oakland, California, United States, founded in 2009. Brandtree records 4 brands under its control, and it is listed as NYSE: XYZ.
Block was called Square until 2021 and was founded by Jack Dorsey, who was simultaneously running Twitter. It started by making a card reader that plugged into a phone headphone socket, which let market stalls and small traders take cards for the first time.
🇺🇸 Square and other American brands
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 2,549 brands that began in the United States. 478 of them (19%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; Square is not one of them.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the parent company of Square?
The parent company of Square is Block, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United States.
Is Square American?
Yes. Square originated in the United States in 2009 and its owner, Block, is also headquartered in the United States.
Is Square still owned by Block?
Yes. As of 9 October 2026, Square is still owned by Block. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Sources (1) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
- [1] Block, Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2026-02-26 — SEC EDGAR, SEC Form 10-K, published 26 February 2026; retrieved 16 September 2026.
Report a correction Opens a pre-filled GitHub issue. See our corrections policy.