The disappearing signature: chip-and-PIN in North America

The US market's transition from signature to chip-and-PIN has been slow, but 2024–2025 saw signature verification fall to a minority of card-present transactions for most merchant categories. The remaining cases are less "customers who insist on signing" and more specific merchant categories where signature still makes sense.

Written August 2025 from merchant category analyses.

Where signature still lives

Three categories where signature still shows up:

• Restaurants doing tip-adjustment on the merchant copy. The signature is a residual of the tip-authorization flow, not a verification method.
• High-value transactions at some merchants. Where the transaction value exceeds an issuer's contactless CVM floor and the merchant doesn't have a PIN pad — signature is still the fallback.
• A long tail of merchants who haven't updated their point-of-sale. The number is dwindling but nonzero.

What to plan for

• Design the merchant copy flow so a "signed" receipt is a record, not a verification. The chip-and-PIN or contactless CVM already verified; the signature adds nothing to the dispute posture.
• If your integration produces signed receipts, make the signature retention policy explicit. Some acquirers require six-month retention; most don't after chip-and-PIN.
• For merchant categories that still use signature, the tip-adjustment flow needs a clean authorization-hold + capture sequence with defensible timing.

What's still unresolved

The tip flow itself. Adjusted-amount captures where the tip exceeds a percentage of the base authorization can produce declines from some issuers, and the merchant experience is inconsistent. This isn't specific to signature — it's a card-present authorization pattern — but signature-era merchants are more likely to hit it.

Signature is receding. The interesting question is what the receipt-and-tip flow looks like once it's gone.