Can a receipt legally show my full credit card number?

No — US FACTA law limits electronically printed receipts to the last five digits (most show four) and prohibits printing the expiration date. Showing more is a compliance violation.

Why do receipts show the last four digits of my card?

So you can identify which card you used, without exposing the full number. Four digits plus the expiration date omission means the printed data can't be used to clone or charge the card.

Should I still shred receipts that only show four digits?

Yes — the last four digits plus your name, merchant, date and amount are mild personal data useful for profiling. Shred discarded receipts, and store the ones you keep digitally.

What if a receipt shows my whole card number?

An electronically printed receipt showing more than five digits or the expiration date violates FACTA. Flag it to the merchant, treat the receipt as sensitive, and shred it — such practices have supported consumer claims.

Do Receipts Show Your Full Credit Card Number?

No — a receipt cannot legally show your full credit card number. Under the US Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), electronically printed receipts may display no more than the last five digits of the card number and must not print the expiration date. In practice, almost every receipt shows only the last four ("\*\*\*\*1234"), which is enough for you to identify the card and useless to anyone else.

What the law requires

FACTA's receipt-truncation rule applies to any receipt printed electronically at the point of sale. The two hard requirements:

Card number: at most the last five digits; the rest must be masked.
Expiration date: must not appear at all.

The law targets the two pieces of data a thief needs together. Showing the last four digits identifies your card to you without exposing the number, and omitting the expiration date removes the second factor. Merchants who violate this face statutory penalties, and the rule has driven a wave of litigation against non-compliant retailers — so businesses take it seriously.

The exceptions and edges

Handwritten or imprinted receipts are outside FACTA's electronic-printing rule — the old "knuckle-buster" card imprints showed the full number, which is exactly why they've nearly vanished. If someone manually writes your full card number on a receipt, that's a practice to avoid.
The merchant's own copy follows the same truncation on the customer-facing portion; internal processing data is handled under separate card-network security rules (PCI DSS), not printed for you.
Your card number never appears in full, but other identifiers do their job: the authorization code and reference number tie the receipt to the transaction for disputes without exposing card data.

What's still worth shredding

Even compliant receipts deserve care. The last four digits plus your name, the merchant, date and amount are mild personal data — not enough to clone a card, but useful to a determined fraudster building a profile. Shred receipts you're discarding rather than binning them whole, and be a little more careful with older receipts (pre-FACTA enforcement) or handwritten ones that may show more. For receipts you keep, scanning and storing them digitally is both safer and more durable than a wallet full of paper.

If a receipt DOES show too much

If you're handed an electronically printed receipt showing more than the last five digits or your expiration date, that merchant is out of compliance. It's worth flagging to the business, and — because FACTA provides for statutory damages — a pattern of it has been the basis of consumer claims. For your own protection, treat such a receipt like sensitive data: don't leave it behind, and shred it when done.

The bottom line

Receipts don't show your full card number — FACTA caps them at the last five digits (usually four) and bans the expiration date. The masking is why a lost receipt is an annoyance rather than a fraud emergency. Shred what you discard anyway, watch for the rare non-compliant or handwritten exception, and keep the receipts that matter digitally rather than in a wallet.