Country configuration
When you verify a phone number, the destination country decides how the code travels: which channels are available there, which one is tried first, and whether verification is allowed at all. The Countries page is where you manage that, one row per country. Email recipients aren't affected by any of this — an email address has no country, so country configuration applies to phone-number recipients only.
By default every country is enabled with Bird's platform routing, so a new workspace can verify phone numbers worldwide without touching this page. You come here to narrow that: turn off countries you never serve (a cheap defense against SMS pumping), reorder channels where you have a preference, or pin a per-country sender.
The Countries page
Each row shows the country, its effective channel order, whether it delivers under a shared or branded sender, and an on/off toggle. Filter by status or channel, or search by country name. A disabled country still shows its platform-default routing greyed out, so you can see what re-enabling restores.
The toggle enables or disables the whole country. Disabling means verifications whose recipient is a phone number in that country won't deliver there; re-enabling returns the country to the platform default rather than whatever you last had pinned, so a country you've only toggled stays in sync with Bird's routing as it evolves. Sender choices survive the toggle.
Per-country routing
Click a row to open the country's routing sheet:
- Channel order — drag channels to set the order Bird tries them for this country. A verification works through the list until a send succeeds.
- Per-channel enable — switch an individual channel off without disabling the country. Channels Bird hasn't made available in a country can't be enabled; the platform sets that ceiling per country.
- Per-channel sender — pin the sender for this country: inherit your configuration default, pin the Bird shared sender, or set a custom one (email only today — see Senders & branding). A per-country choice wins over the configuration default for recipients in that country.
Why disable a country
The most common reason isn't preference — it's fraud. SMS pumping schemes trigger OTP sends to premium-rate numbers in countries the business has no users in, and every delivered code costs you money. If your product serves a known set of markets, disabling the rest closes that surface entirely. Verify's platform caps limit the blast radius either way, but a country you've turned off costs you nothing.
Next steps
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Senders & branding | Shared and branded senders, and what the code messages look like |
| Sending verifications | The send and check calls, per-request channel overrides, and limits |
| Verify overview | The section map and platform defaults |