PCI compliance for restaurants: A step-by-step guide

How to become PCI compliant as a restaurant 

PCI compliance varies based on your annual transaction volume. Restaurants generally fall into one of four levels: 

• Level 1: Over 6 million annual card transactions. 
• Level 2: Between 1 million and 6 million transactions. 
• Level 3: Between 20,000 and 1 million eCommerce transactions. 
• Level 4: Fewer than 20,000 eCommerce transactions, or up to 1 million in-person transactions. 

Each level has different reporting expectations, ranging from self-assessment questionnaires to on-site audits.

Payment processors play a major role in helping restaurants stay compliant. Paysafe provides PCI-compliant restaurant payments through secure POS systems, tokenization, encrypted transactions, and up-to-date compliance support.

The 12 PCI requirements to meet 

There are 12 distinct PCI DSS requirements that all businesses, including restaurants, are expected to meet.  

These are: 

1. Install and maintain firewalls: Control traffic entering and leaving your network, preventing malicious actors from accessing sensitive data. 
2. Avoid vendor default passwords: Operating systems, firewalls, and other elements of digital infrastructure have factory settings that include default vendor passwords. These must be replaced with secure credentials. 
3. Protect stored cardholder data: All sensitive information must be encrypted and purged on a quarterly basis. 
4. Encrypt data transmitted across public networks: Use strong encryption to protect all payment data. 
5. Use and maintain anti-virus software: Protect all systems with software to actively guard against malware and security threats. 
6. Develop and maintain secure systems: Security threats are always changing. Restaurants need to apply patches and updates promptly.
7. Restrict data access by business need: Just-in-time access must be used to ensure that team members can only access payment data when necessary.
8. Use unique user IDs: Every employee must have their own unique login credentials.
9. Restrict physical access to data: Protect terminals, servers, and storage areas inside and outside of business hours.
10. Track and monitor network access: Maintain logs for audits and security reviews.
11. Test security systems regularly: Conduct periodic scans, updates, and vulnerability testing.
12. Maintain a formal security policy: Train employees regularly and document all processes, ensuring all employees have access to relevant security policies.

PCI compliance steps for restaurants

Here are some practical steps restaurants can take to ensure their PCI DSS compliance as detailed above. 

1. Secure your Wi-Fi network with a firewall: Restaurant guest Wi-Fi networks are common entry points for cyberattacks. Firewalls help segment payment systems from customer networks and prevent unauthorized access. 
2. Use a PCI-compliant point of sale: POS systems should encrypt data, reduce physical exposure, and support tokenization, replacing card details with secure digital tokens. Paysafe’s PCI-compliant restaurant POS provides encrypted payment flows, fast processing, and built-in compliance features.
3. Install and maintain reliable anti-virus protection: Anti-virus tools protect POS terminals and other internet-enabled devices from malware that could expose cardholder data. Regular updates and scheduled scans help ensure PCI compliance and ongoing system security.
4. Protect access with strong, regularly updated passwords: Because weak passwords are a common cause of data breaches, restaurants should require unique user IDs, password rotation, and multi-factor authentication.
5. Restrict customer payment data access to authorized staff: Role-based permissions, monitoring sensitive systems, logging user actions, and just-in-time access help restaurants maintain compliance while reducing internal risk.
6. Never store unnecessary credit card information: Restaurants should avoid storing card numbers, CVV codes, and other sensitive data unless absolutely necessary, and only ever in an encrypted form.