Updated 27 August 2026
What changed, and when
A dated record of the platform policies and regulations that decide whether a merchant in a regulated category can take cards. seven documents, re-read on a schedule, each carrying the date it states for itself and the date we last read it.
How this is kept
- Two dates, always
- The date a document claims for itself, and the date we last read it. A reading of somebody else’s policy is worth nothing if you cannot check it, and worth less than nothing if it is quietly stale.
- four of the seven publish no date at all
- So “has it changed?” cannot be answered by looking. We fingerprint the vocabulary of each page instead, and a script re-reads them all and reports what moved. It catches a category being added, removed or renamed. It does not catch a sentence reworded in words already on the page, and we would rather say so than let you assume otherwise.
- Quiet checks get published too
- A tracker that only appears when something happens gives you no way to tell watching from forgetting. When nothing moved, that is an entry.
- Primary sources only
- The policy page, the Federal Register document or the statute. Quotes are verbatim and marked as quotes. We link to policies rather than reproducing them.
Ahead
Dates already fixed. Underwriting moves before the date, not after it, which is what makes these worth acting on early.
- Regulation
The federal definition of hemp narrows
Three changes at once: the threshold moves from delta-9 THC to total THC, which counts THCA and delta-8; finished products face a ceiling of 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container, which does not scale with product size the way a percentage does; and cannabinoids synthesised outside the plant are excluded outright. Between them they remove the legal ground under most of what is currently sold as compliant intoxicating hemp. The date to plan around is not November. Acquirers reprice a known future exposure before it arrives, not after, so category reviews tighten, new applications get harder and reserves rise through the autumn.
Hits:CBD and hemp
Source: Congressional Research Service, IN12620. Our longer read: What the November hemp change means for payments.
Recorded
- Watch note
All seven sources re-read, none moved
Stripe still states 13 May 2026, PayPal still states 29 October 2022, and the five undated documents fingerprint identically to our last reading. Nothing to do. We publish the quiet checks as well as the loud ones, because a tracker that only appears when something happens gives you no way to tell watching from forgetting.
Source: Our watchlist.
- Platform policy
Squarespace updated what it says you cannot sell
The article states this date for itself and publishes no changelog, so what moved is not knowable from the page. We started fingerprinting it on 27 August 2026, which means we can tell you about the next change but not this one. Recorded so the gap is visible rather than papered over.
- Regulation
DEA moves to place 7-OH above a threshold in Schedule I
“notice of intent to publish a temporary order to schedule 7-hydroxymitragynine above a specified threshold”
The action targets concentrated 7-hydroxymitragynine above a stated threshold rather than kratom leaf, and that distinction is real. It is also a distinction an underwriter is unlikely to make for you. A merchant selling leaf product should expect to be asked to prove which side of the threshold the catalogue sits on, and should have certificates of analysis that answer it before the question arrives rather than after a review opens.
Hits:Kratom
Source: Federal Register, DEA notice 2026-13580; DEA press release, 1 July 2026.
- Platform policy
Stripe's restricted-businesses list last moved
“Updated domestic charter air travel from prohibited to restricted in the US, CA, UK, EU, BR, IN, TH, AU.”
Nothing in the categories we cover moved, and that is the useful part. Stripe maintains this list actively enough to publish a one-line note about charter air travel, so a category the list does not mention is not an oversight waiting to be corrected in your favour. It is a decision left to an underwriter, made after you have built the store and taken orders.
Source: Stripe: Prohibited and restricted businesses. Our longer read: How to read Stripe's restricted list.
- Platform policy
PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy last moved, and has not since
Nearly four years without a revision, through an entire cycle of hemp, peptide and kratom enforcement. Read that as a warning rather than as stability: when the text does not move but the outcomes do, the change is happening in enforcement, and a merchant watching the document will never see it coming. This is the single most common way a merchant arrives at us convinced they did nothing wrong, and they are usually right about that.
Source: PayPal: Acceptable Use Policy.
What we watch
seven documents. Not every one of them is a payments policy: two decide whether the storefront may exist at all, which is a separate way to lose a business and the one merchants tend not to see coming.
The only mainstream processor list that names categories individually, and the one Shopify Payments delegates to in the United States.
The document states 13 May 2026. We last read it 27 August 2026, and have been watching it since 3 August 2026.
- PayPalAcceptable Use Policy
Written in categories rather than products, which is why merchants who read it and concluded they were fine still get shut off.
The document states 29 October 2022. We last read it 27 August 2026, and have been watching it since 3 August 2026.
- ShopifyPayment processor list
Names which processor serves each country. For the United States it names Stripe and PayPal, which is why Shopify Payments has no separate answer.
The document publishes no date. We last read it 27 August 2026, and have been watching it since 3 August 2026.
- ShopifyAcceptable Use Policy
Decides whether the store itself may exist, separately from whether Shopify Payments will process for it. Losing this one takes the storefront, not just the checkout.
The document publishes no date. We last read it 27 August 2026, and have been watching it since 27 August 2026.
Where the delegation to the per-country processor is actually written down.
The document publishes no date. We last read it 27 August 2026, and have been watching it since 27 August 2026.
An explicit list, unusually for a site builder, and stricter than most merchants expect when they arrive from a template.
The document publishes no date. We last read it 27 August 2026, and have been watching it since 27 August 2026.
- SquarespaceWhat can't I sell on Squarespace?
The support article merchants actually read before choosing a platform, which is not the same document as the terms they agree to.
The document states 21 July 2026. We last read it 27 August 2026, and have been watching it since 27 August 2026.
Watching a policy is not the same as predicting one. Nothing here is legal advice, and none of it is a promise about what any processor will do with your account. If a date on this page matters to your catalogue, the useful move is to check your own products against it rather than to wait and see, which is what the free underwriting check is for.
Does any of this land on your catalogue?
A date on a calendar only matters if it touches what you actually sell. We will tell you which of these apply to your products and what to do about them, whether or not it leads to work for us.
Both are free and neither is a sales call. The check asks for your web address and nothing else; the call is thirty minutes and ends with an answer whether or not it leads to work for us. Ready to start instead? Tell us what you sell.