Verify destinations

When you verify a phone number, the destination country decides how the code travels: which channels are available there, which one is tried first, whether verification is allowed at all, and which language the message defaults to. The Destinations page is where you manage that, one row per country. Email-only recipients aren't affected by any of this: an email address has no country, so country configuration applies to verifications whose recipient includes a phone number.

Every country is enabled with Bird's platform routing by default. Use this page to turn off countries you do not serve, reorder channels, or pin a per-country sender. Disabling unused destinations also reduces exposure to SMS pumping.

The Destinations page

Countries are grouped by region, with a summary of how many are enabled in each region and a map. Each row shows the country, its effective channel order, which sender each channel delivers under, and an on/off toggle. Filter by status, region, or channel, or search by country name. A disabled country shows its selected channels grayed out, so you can see what turning it on uses.

The toggle enables or disables the whole country. If a recipient includes a phone number in a disabled country, the verification resolves no channels and creation fails with 422. An email address on the same recipient does not bypass the block. Turning a country on keeps its channel, order, and sender choices. A country that is on with no channel selected shows No channels selected, and verifications there fail with 422 until you choose channels in its routing sheet.

Changes on this page are not saved straight away. The toggle, Enable all and Disable all on a region, and the bulk actions below collect in a bar at the bottom of the page, which counts the unsaved changes. Choose Save changes to apply them together, or Discard to drop them. Saving applies every change or none of them, and a save that turns a country off, or turns on a high-risk destination, asks for confirmation first.

With write access to Verify settings, you can change many countries at once. Select their checkboxes, or a region's checkbox to select every country in it. The selection stays when you change the search or filters. Check the selected count before choosing an action:

• Status: choose Turn on or Turn off for the selected countries.
• Channels: each channel shows how many of the selected countries use it, and a switch that is half on when they differ. Switch a channel on or off, then choose Apply. A channel you leave untouched keeps each country's current setting, and the undo button next to a switch puts it back. Changes apply to selected countries that offer the channel.
• Channel order: drag the channels into the order Bird should try them, then choose Apply. A country that does not offer a channel skips it.

Turning a channel on also turns on the selected countries that offer it. Senders remain per-country settings in the routing sheet.

Per-country routing

Click a country's name to open its routing sheet:

• Channel order: drag channels to set the order Bird tries them for this country, for example SMS before WhatsApp. 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. Voice starts switched off; switch it on here for each country where you want codes read out in a phone call.
• Per-channel sender: choose the sender for email, SMS, or WhatsApp in this country. Inherit your configuration default, choose a Bird-managed identity, or use your verified email domain, an SMS Sender ID, or a connected WhatsApp number with an approved authentication template. A per-country choice wins over the configuration default. A country-specific SMS Sender ID does not use the default sender fallback.

Where WhatsApp cannot carry a passcode

Bird's shared WhatsApp sender does not deliver passcodes to Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, or the United Arab Emirates. WhatsApp still appears in these countries' channel order and you can still move it to the top, but the send is refused when Verify reaches that channel, and the verification continues down the list.

The refused attempt is recorded like any other failure, with the reason channel_restricted, so a verify.attempt.undelivered event says why WhatsApp did not deliver. See Events and webhooks.

Keep at least one other channel enabled in these countries. A verification whose only channel is WhatsApp has nothing to continue to, so creation fails with 422.

Why disable a country

SMS pumping schemes trigger passcode sends to numbers in countries your business does not serve, consuming wallet balance. If your product serves a known set of markets, disable the rest. Verify's platform caps provide another limit, but a disabled country cannot incur delivery charges.

Next steps