The documents Meta asks for, before you go live.

Documents Meta accepts for business verification

Meta’s help centre lists five primary document types. The document has to prove your business’s legal name, and its official postal address or phone number.

• Certificate or articles of incorporation
• Business registration or licence document
• Government-issued business tax document, such as a tax certificate. Self-filed tax documents are not accepted
• Business bank statement
• Utility bill, for the business address and phone number only. It must carry the legal business name, but it does not prove the name

Common Indian documents, by Meta’s type

Meta names types, not Indian documents. These are the usual Indian documents that fall under each type. Whether a particular one is accepted is Meta’s decision on review.

• Incorporation: the certificate of incorporation for a private or public limited company or LLP
• Registration or licence: a Shop and Establishment licence, or a trade licence from your municipality
• Tax: the GST registration certificate issued by the GST portal
• Bank statement: a statement for the business’s current account, in its legal name
• Utility bill: an electricity, landline or broadband bill in the business’s legal name, for the address or phone only

What the document must show, and must not

Most rejections are a mismatch, not a missing document.

• The legal name exactly as you entered it in Meta Business Suite, letter for letter
• The official postal address or phone number you entered
• Not expired, and issued by the relevant authority
• Cover personal details Meta does not need, such as a personal Aadhaar or PAN number printed on it

Supported languages

The document must be in one of Meta’s 21 supported languages: Arabic, Bengali, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish or Vietnamese. A document in any other language, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi or Gujarati among them, needs an English translation carrying the official stamp of a translating agency.

Website and email

If you choose to receive Meta’s verification code by email, Meta may ask you to prove you own the website domain of that email address. A business email on your own domain, with a website on that domain, makes this step simple.

Uploading through a partner

When a WhatsApp partner submits verification for you (partner-led business verification), Meta takes up to 3 documents, each up to 5 MB, as PDF, JPEG, JPG or PNG.

What you need for the API itself

Separate from verification, the WhatsApp Business API needs these before your first message.

• A Meta business portfolio (formerly Business Manager)
• A phone number you own that can receive an SMS or a voice call. Short codes are not supported
• A number not already registered on WhatsApp, or deleted from it first. The WhatsApp Business app can stay on the same number through coexistence
• A display name for the number, which Meta reviews against its display name guidelines

What verification changes

A new business portfolio can message 250 unique customers in a rolling 24 hours outside a customer-started conversation, and register 2 phone numbers. Verifying the business is one of three ways to qualify for a 2,000 limit, after a review of your message quality, and raises the phone number cap to 20. Verification in Meta Business Suite is not Meta Verified, and does not give you a verified badge.