Restaurant EPOS Systems UK: 2026 Costs, Rules & What to Ask

A restaurant EPOS system in the UK costs from £0 a month to £150 or more in software, on the prices four vendors published when we checked on 13 October 2026. Card fees and hardware come on top. Square, the only one of the four that publishes an in-person card rate, charges 1.75%, and its restaurant hardware starts at £99 + VAT for an iPad stand, iPad not included.

Your till must also handle mixed VAT rates, Making Tax Digital records, tips records and the ban on card surcharges.

MenuBeacon makes QR menu, table ordering and kitchen software; we don't sell EPOS systems or card processing. How we checked: on 13 October 2026 we opened each vendor's own UK pricing page and every official and trade-press source cited here. SumUp isn't included because its UK pricing page didn't open for us that day. This is general information, not legal or tax advice: check VAT and National Insurance with your accountant or tax adviser, and tips with Acas or an employment adviser.

At a glance (checked 13 October 2026)

What a restaurant EPOS system does

EPOS (electronic point of sale) is the till system that runs service. In a restaurant, café or pub it does five jobs:

• Takes orders at the counter, on staff handhelds or from guests' phones.
• Sends each order to the kitchen or bar, on a printer or a kitchen display.
• Takes payment by card, contactless, phone wallet or cash.
• Records tips and service charges separately from sales.
• Reports sales by VAT rate, item and shift, and exports them to your accounts.

What a restaurant EPOS system costs in the UK in 2026

Of the hospitality EPOS systems we checked, these four publish UK prices on their own pages, and Stripe publishes the online card rates used for paying at the table.

What else the pricing pages say:

• Square: Plus has a 30-day free trial. The kitchen display app is £15 + VAT a month per screen on Free and unlimited on Plus. Scan to Pay is on Plus and Premium, at online rates. On Free, the Terminal is listed with limited features, including payments and receipts.
• Toast: Essentials adds a kitchen display and an all-in-one handheld; devices after the first cost extra. Toast advises against using your own hardware (page updated 9 February 2026).
• Lightspeed: QR ordering and pay is an add-on on Basic and included on Core and Pro. Ask for a quote in pounds.
• Epos Now: the discounted bundles require the 12-month subscription, and Order & Pay is listed as an add-on. Offers change, so get the price in a written quote.
• Stripe: no monthly fee; add 2% when currency conversion is needed. A dispute costs £20, plus £20 if you contest it, refunded if you win.

Two things stand out. "Free" software is paid for through the card rate: on Square Free, £20,000 a month of card takings costs £350 a month in fees (1.75% × £20,000). And three of the four EPOS vendors don't publish a card rate, so ask each for your effective rate in writing.

Contract terms to check

Square says no long-term contract is required. Epos Now's discounted bundles tie you to a 12-month subscription. Toast and Lightspeed don't publish contract length or exit fees on their pricing pages, so ask for both, and ask who owns the hardware if you leave.

What a restaurant EPOS costs over 3 years: a worked example

Illustrative arithmetic on list prices checked 13 October 2026, not customer data. Assumptions: £20,000 a month in card takings (£240,000 a year) and a £40 average bill paid in one card payment, so 500 payments a month (6,000 a year). Hardware prices exclude VAT, subscriptions are as listed, and any kitchen tablet is one you already own.

A. Square Plus and a kitchen screen, every payment taken in person

• Software £69 × 12 = £828 a year; card fees 1.75% × £240,000 = £4,200 a year.
• Register £699 + kitchen screen £549 = £1,248, once.
• Year 1: £6,276. Over 36 months: £828 × 3 + £4,200 × 3 + £1,248 = £16,332.

B. Square Free and a Square Terminal, counter payments, no QR ordering

• Software £0; card fees £4,200 a year; Terminal £149, once. On Free the Terminal has limited features, so B is in effect a card terminal.
• Year 1: £4,349. Over 36 months: £4,200 × 3 + £149 = £12,749.

C. B, plus MenuBeacon Pro (UK edition) for table ordering and pay at the table, with half the takings paid at the table

• Stripe on £120,000 and 3,000 payments: 1.5% × £120,000 + 3,000 × 20p = £1,800 + £600 = £2,400 a year.
• Square on the other £120,000: 1.75% × £120,000 = £2,100 a year. Terminal £149, once.
• Pro: $20 × 12 = $240 a year, billed in US dollars.
• Year 1: £4,649 + $240. Over 36 months: (£2,400 + £2,100) × 3 + £149 = £13,649 + $720.

What the numbers show:

• B is the cheapest on fees, with no QR ordering at all.
• C costs £300 a year more than B in card fees, plus Pro, because Stripe's fixed 20p makes a £40 payment cost 80p (2.0%) against 70p (1.75%) in person on Square. Add table ordering for how you want service to run, not to cut card fees.
• A costs the most and buys a complete EPOS, including Scan to Pay. If half of A's takings were paid by Scan to Pay, as in C, its card fees would be £4,530 a year (1.4% × £120,000 + 3,000 × 25p = £2,430, plus £2,100 in person), against C's £4,500. A guest paying on their own phone costs about the same either way: 81p on £40 with Square, 80p with Stripe.
• Paying at the counter closes the gap. With table ordering on MenuBeacon Free instead of Pro, and payment on your terminal, C's fees fall back to B's, within Free's 20 table codes and 5,000 menu scans a month.

Where the arithmetic moves:

• Small tickets. A £5 drink costs 27.5p on Stripe (5.5%) and 8.75p in person on Square (1.75%).
• Premium cards. At 2.8% + 20p, Stripe takes £1.32 on a £40 bill instead of 80p.
• Split bills. Each extra card payment on a bill adds another fixed fee: 20p on Stripe, 25p on Square's Scan to Pay.
• Two sets of records. In C, orders don't flow into the till, so sales and VAT figures come from both systems, and table orders can carry only one VAT rate. Plan the month-end reconciliation first.

UK rules your restaurant EPOS must handle

VAT: eat-in, takeaway and rates that change

Food and drink eaten on your premises is standard-rated, at 20%. Cold takeaway is zero-rated unless it's a type that's always standard-rated, such as crisps, sweets and bottled water. Hot takeaway that meets HMRC's hot food tests is standard-rated (VAT Notice 709/1, updated 8 June 2026, sections 3.1, 4.1 and 4.2).

So one cold sandwich is 20% at a table and 0% in a bag, and your till needs an eat-in or takeaway switch on each order. A dine-in-only menu is all standard-rated. All of this applies once you're VAT-registered, which is compulsory when your taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, or you expect it to go over £90,000 in the next 30 days (GOV.UK, updated 10 October 2024).

Rates move, too. Certain children's meals were 5% from 25 June to 1 September 2026 inclusive (Revenue and Customs Brief 5 (2026)). The Budget is on 28 October 2026 (Chancellor's letter on GOV.UK, 31 July 2026), and the industry has asked for hospitality VAT to be cut to 10% (The Caterer, 31 July 2026). Ask how quickly your EPOS can change a rate.

VAT and National Insurance on service charges

From HMRC's guide E24 (updated 18 July 2025):

• Compulsory service charge: part of the price of the meal, so standard-rated. National Insurance is always due when you pay it to staff.
• Genuinely optional service charge or tip: outside the scope of VAT, even when it's printed on the bill.
• Tips shared by an independent tronc: no National Insurance if you don't decide, directly or indirectly, who gets what. If you allocate them, it's due. PAYE applies to every tip paid through payroll.

Illustrative arithmetic: a 12.5% compulsory service charge on a £100 bill is £12.50, including £2.08 of VAT (£12.50 × 20/120). The VAT part isn't a tip under the tips law (ERA 1996 s.27C(7)), so £10.42 must be shared fairly with staff, with National Insurance due. If the charge is genuinely optional, all £12.50 is outside VAT, and all of it is a tip to share with staff.

Making Tax Digital records

VAT-registered businesses must keep digital records and move data between software by digital links, unless HMRC accepts they're exempt. CSV import and export count; copy and paste doesn't (VAT Notice 700/22, updated 1 April 2022, sections 1.2, 2.1 and 3.2.1).

If you use a retail scheme, such as the Point of Sale scheme or the catering adaptation (Notice 709/1, section 5.6), a till that can't export is still acceptable: key its printed daily totals for each VAT rate into your MTD software (Notice 700/22, section 3.5 and section 5, example 6). If you don't use a retail scheme, check with your accountant.

MTD for Income Tax applies to sole traders and landlords registered for Self Assessment, unless exempt, with qualifying income over £50,000 from 6 April 2026, over £30,000 from April 2027 and over £20,000 from April 2028 (GOV.UK, updated 26 March 2026). Qualifying income is turnover before expenses (GOV.UK, updated 11 September 2026), so a sole-trader café that took £35,000 in 2025–26 starts in April 2027, whatever its profit.

Tips: the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023

The law has applied in England, Scotland and Wales since 1 October 2024 (statutory code of practice). What it requires:

• What's covered. Tips, gratuities and service charges, whatever they're called, that you receive or control (s.27C).
• Fair shares, paid on time. Allocated fairly between workers (s.27D) and paid by the end of the month after the customer paid (s.27G).
• No card fees off tips. The tip is what the customer paid, ignoring deductions by you or anyone else (s.27C(6)). If a £45 card payment includes a £5 tip, Stripe's 1.5% on the tip is 7.5p: you absorb it, and the full £5 is allocated to staff, before any usual tax and National Insurance (Acas, updated 1 October 2026).
• A written policy and records if tips are paid more than occasionally. Keep records for 3 years; workers can ask for them once every 3 months, and you have 4 weeks to reply (Acas).

The Employment Rights Act 2025 adds a duty to consult workers when you write or review your tipping policy (s.14, not yet in force). The consultation on a revised code closed on 29 September 2026, and no outcome is published yet (GOV.UK).

No surcharge on consumer cards

You can't charge a fee for paying by consumer debit or credit card, and a fee on a commercial card can't be more than that card costs you to accept (Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012, reg. 6A). Card fees belong in your menu prices.

Allergens and front-of-house rules

You must give information on the 14 allergens, and the FSA advises written information supported by a conversation. For online or phone orders, it must be available before the purchase is completed and when the food is delivered (FSA guidance for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, updated 17 July 2026; in Scotland, see Food Standards Scotland). For price display, optional service charges and ID checks, see our guide to UK rules for menus, service charges and alcohol.

Do small restaurants need a full EPOS, or is a card terminal enough?

For a small restaurant, the cheap option is a card reader or terminal on a free plan. The table shows when that stops being enough.

Guests are split, too: about a third of UK pub-goers (34%) prefer to order and pay from their table, in vendor research for Zonal (Morning Advertiser, 8 December 2025; see our order at table guide for UK pubs and restaurants). Plan table ordering as an option next to the bar, not a replacement for it. When you compare EPOS systems for pubs, test tabs and drinks routing first.

Where MenuBeacon fits next to an EPOS, and where it stops

MenuBeacon isn't an EPOS or a certified till: it is QR menus, table ordering and a live kitchen dashboard in the browser. It is not a full POS replacement and has no full two-way POS sync, so it runs next to your terminal, as in set-up C. The UK edition prices menus and bills in pounds.

• Free ($0, no expiry): 3 menus (unlimited items), 20 table QR codes, 5,000 menu scans a month, table ordering, waiter call and bill request, and the kitchen dashboard on a tablet or computer you already own. Guests pay cash or at the counter. Free menus show a small "Powered by MenuBeacon" line, and there are no staff accounts.
• Pro ($20 a month, billed in US dollars, month to month): in the UK edition, guests can pay at the table by card through your own Stripe account, at standard Stripe fees, with tips and equal split bills (up to 10 parts, not by item). Pro also adds service charges, up to 20 staff accounts with PINs and signed webhooks. Kitchen tickets and guest receipts print on every plan, on a printer you provide. There's no commission on orders or tips.

Where it stops:

• One tax rate per restaurant: it can't charge 20% and 0% on one bill. VAT stays with you, and we make no VAT-compliance claim.
• No tabs or till sync: later rounds stay on the same table session, but it can't hold a card for a pre-authorised tab, and orders don't post into your till.
• One board: there is no station routing, so plan for drinks and food on the same board.
• Tips records: reports are on every plan, and the orders CSV export has a tip column of its own.
• Connection: live updates have a polling fallback, and there is limited offline continuity for signed-in staff cash workflows (not delivery or new sign-ins), so a reliable connection is recommended.
• Several sites: whether Pro is billed per restaurant or per account isn't published, so ask before you move several sites.

Questions to ask an EPOS vendor before you sign

Ask them to show you:

• A 0% and a 20% item on one bill, and an order switched from eat-in to takeaway.
• Drinks going to the bar and food to the kitchen, on printers or screens. Square, for example, lists kitchen display ticket routing on all three of its plans.
• A bill split by item, and a card held for a bar tab. Square's Free plan doesn't include item or seat splits; those need Plus or Premium.
• An export with tips and service charges as separate fields, and daily totals by VAT rate as a CSV.
• Pint and half, mixers and allergens on the printed tickets.

Ask them to put in writing:

1. The total cost over 12 and 36 months, including card fees and hardware.
2. Your effective card rate on your average bill.
3. Whether guests can order and pay at the table, and at what card rate.
4. How tips and service charges are recorded, and how card fees on tips are handled. They can't come out of staff tips.
5. How sales data reaches your accounting software for Making Tax Digital.
6. How allergens appear on menus and tickets.
7. The contract length, the cost of leaving, and who owns the hardware.
8. What happens if the internet goes down mid-service, and whether contactless still works. Square's Terminal and Register decline offline payments if they aren't back online within 24 hours of the first offline payment, and Square says contactless payments don't work offline. Toast says its offline mode keeps taking card payments until the connection returns.

Sources, checked on 13 October 2026

• Prices: Square for Restaurants UK pricing (undated); Square Reader (undated); Zettle UK pricing (undated); Toast UK pricing (updated 9 February 2026); Lightspeed Restaurant UK pricing (undated); Epos Now UK pricing (undated); Stripe UK pricing (undated).
• VAT and service charges: GOV.UK VAT rates (undated); Register for VAT (updated 10 October 2024); VAT Notice 709/1 (updated 8 June 2026); Revenue and Customs Brief 5 (2026) (updated 27 July 2026); Chancellor's letter on the Budget date (31 July 2026); The Caterer on the Budget (31 July 2026); HMRC E24 (updated 18 July 2025).
• Making Tax Digital: VAT Notice 700/22 (updated 1 April 2022); when you need MTD for Income Tax (updated 26 March 2026); qualifying income (updated 11 September 2026).
• Tips: Employment Rights Act 1996 s.27C, s.27D and s.27G, inserted by the 2023 Act; Employment Rights Act 2025, s.14 (not yet in force); statutory code of practice (published 29 July 2024); Acas on tips and service charges and policies and records (both updated 1 October 2026); revised code consultation (closed 29 September 2026).
• Surcharges, allergens and guests: reg. 6A (in force since 13 January 2018); FSA allergen guidance (England, Wales and Northern Ireland; updated 17 July 2026); Food Standards Scotland on managing allergens (undated); Morning Advertiser on CGA by NIQ and Zonal (8 December 2025).

Not sure you need a full EPOS? Send us your menu and set-up with the subject Setup help, and the team will help you work out which features fit and what to set up first. It aims to reply within one business day.