POS offline mode: what still works when the internet drops

When the internet drops, most restaurant POS systems keep taking orders and cards. The card payments wait on the device until you reconnect, and you carry the loss if a bank declines one later. What else keeps running, such as kitchen tickets, gift cards, online orders and reports, differs by system, and so does how long a stored payment can wait.

Our reviews of Toast, Square, Clover, SpotOn, Lightspeed and SkyTab each give offline mode a few lines. This page sets the six side by side from each company's help pages and adds a plan for before, during and after an outage. SkyTab is now called Shift4 Dine, after Shift4 renamed it in May 2026.

What keeps running on each POS?

POS	Orders and kitchen	What stops or waits
Toast	New orders on terminals and Toast Go handhelds. Receipts print while Ethernet cables stay plugged in. Tickets reach a hardwired KDS if the network meets Toast's setup rules	Toast gift cards and loyalty, online ordering, new Mobile Order & Pay orders, menu edits including 86ing items, shift review, and reports until devices sync
Square	Square's offline help covers payments. Test your kitchen printer and KDS with the internet off	Close-of-day reports; loyalty points must be linked by hand later; new online and delivery-app orders may not reach the POS until the disruption ends
Clover	Clover's offline help covers payments. Test your kitchen printer and KDS with the internet off	EBT and gift card payments
SpotOn Restaurant	SpotOn says POS stations, KDS, handhelds, printers and kiosks stay connected and orders keep firing to the kitchen	SpotOn's restaurant page lists no limits; ask for them in writing
Lightspeed Restaurant (K-Series)	Orders, tables, sync between registers, kitchen printing, KDS, cash and clock-ins, all over the local network	Integrated card payments, Back Office reports and menu changes, item photos and allergen notes, gift cards, loyalty, delivery and online-order integrations
Shift4 Dine (formerly SkyTab)	The local network, printers and KDS keep working while the local network is up	Refunds and pre-authorizations; menu edits are saved only on the station where you make them

Sources: Toast's guide to using offline mode, Square's offline payments article, Clover's offline payments setup, SpotOn's restaurant POS page, Lightspeed's offline POS article and Shift4's offline payments FAQ.

Two details matter most at a busy store. Lightspeed says that if the local network fails as well as the internet, only one POS (the active device) keeps taking orders, and printers and the KDS stop. Toast says its offline KDS needs Universal Plug and Play multicast turned on in the router and at least one hardwired Toast device on the network to act as the local hub.

How long can offline card payments wait?

POS	Offline cards by default?	Limits you can set	How long they can wait	Not taken offline
Toast	Yes, background card processing is on by default	A per-payment limit; managers override anything above it	Toast warns an authorization can expire as early as 24 hours after the sale in some cases	Pre-authorizations started during the outage, Toast gift cards
Square	Yes, since April 2026, unless you opted out	A maximum per payment between $1 and $50,000, or cash only	Register, Terminal and Handheld: upload within 72 hours, and Square recommends 24. Readers and Stand: 24-hour sessions	Typed-in cards, Square Gift Cards, Afterpay, Cash App Pay, Tap to Pay, EBT/SNAP, and the Kiosk app
Clover	Yes, on Station, Station 2, Mini, Flex and Mobile	A cap per payment, a total per device, and approval above an amount	Up to 7 days	EBT and gift cards
SpotOn Restaurant	SpotOn says offline mode switches on by itself	Not stated on the restaurant page	Not stated on the restaurant page; payments sync when the internet returns	Not stated on the restaurant page
Lightspeed Restaurant	Cards run on the payment terminal in standalone mode over LTE or 4G	Not stated in the offline article	Not stated in the offline article	Any card, on a terminal without a cellular connection
Shift4 Dine	Yes, it comes switched on	An optional limit per payment	Up to two days; the POS flags offline payments older than 24 hours	Refunds, pre-authorizations, cards on a Shift4 Duo, and cards on the customer display unless it runs Shift4's Commerce Engine

Square prints two clocks. Its help article gives Register, Terminal and Handheld 72 hours from the start of the offline session. The footnotes on its hardware pages say offline payments are declined if you do not reconnect within 24 hours of the first one. Plan for 24.

Toast, Square and Clover each say you are responsible for payments declined after you reconnect, and Shift4 says a payment approved offline can still be declined by the card's bank. Square adds that it cannot give you contact details for a guest whose offline payment failed.

What happens to online, delivery and phone orders?

Orders that start outside the building need the internet to reach you. Toast says its online ordering is unavailable offline and suggests turning it off, switching DoorDash and Uber Eats to a backup method, and pausing Mobile Order & Pay. Square says new online orders may not appear on the POS until the disruption ends, then show up in Square Dashboard. Lightspeed lists delivery and online-order integrations as unavailable.

Phone orders placed through an outside service work the same way. Maple, for example, writes phone orders into Toast, Square, Clover, SkyTab (now Shift4 Dine), Lightspeed, SpotOn and other systems listed on its integrations page. Ask any phone-ordering provider what happens to an order placed while your POS is offline, and how your staff will see it.

What should you set up before the next outage?

1. Turn on offline cards while you are online. Toast only lets you change the setting when fully online, and Shift4 says a POS without the right updates may fail to go offline.
2. Set a per-payment limit that covers your largest normal check, and decide who may approve anything above it.
3. Put the kitchen on the local network. Keep the KDS, printers and any kiosk on the same network and subnet as the POS, with Ethernet where the vendor asks for it.
4. Add a cellular backup. Toast suggests one to avoid expired authorizations, and Lightspeed terminals need LTE to take cards offline.
5. Create an offline order type that asks for a name and phone number, as Toast suggests, so you can reach a guest whose card declines later.
6. Print an outage card for the office wall: do not restart the router, turn off devices, sign out or delete the POS app, and keep each server on one device.
7. Name who pauses online ordering and switches the delivery tablets, and write down how.
8. Test it on a quiet afternoon. Unplug the internet, ring a test order, send it to the kitchen, and take a card under and over your limit. Reconnect and find each payment.

What do you do when the connection comes back?

1. Leave the devices on until every stored payment uploads. Shift4 sends one pending payment every two minutes and says to allow one hour for every 30 pending payments.
2. Do not force the batch. Toast says not to press Capture on the Close Out Day screen; authorizations are captured once the device reconnects.
3. Check for declines in your payments report, and call guests using the contact details you took offline.
4. Fix tips, loyalty and time entries. Square has you add handwritten tips and link loyalty points after the upload, and Toast advises against running payroll until everything has synced.
5. Turn online ordering back on and check the delivery tablets are back to normal.

Published by Maple, which sells AI phone ordering that writes orders into several of these POS systems. This AI-assisted guide compares each vendor's own help pages and restaurant pages with an original outage checklist. It does not report hands-on testing of any POS, and each vendor's settings, limits and time windows can change, so check its current help page before you rely on them.