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WhatsApp business verification

Business verification is Meta's check that your business is a real, identifiable organization. It happens entirely inside Meta Business Suite, on the business portfolio that owns your WhatsApp Business Account. Bird is not part of the decision and cannot approve or accelerate it.
You do not need it to start. Bird's managed numbers sit on Bird's own portfolio, so verification is not yours to do there. A number of your own sits on your portfolio, and both connects and sends while that portfolio is unverified. Verification is what lifts the ceilings you hit once volume grows. The one thing it gates outright is the authentication category, which needs a verified business.

What verification unlocks

Verification moves two limits Meta sets and opens one more capability. Both limits sit on the business portfolio and are shared by every phone number in it:
  • Your messaging limit. This is the number of unique WhatsApp users you can start conversations with in a moving 24-hour period. New portfolios start at 250, and verifying your business is one of the paths to 2,000, after which Meta raises it automatically. Number quality and messaging limit covers the full ladder and the criteria for each step.
  • Your template count. An unverified portfolio caps each WhatsApp Business Account at 250 message templates. A verified portfolio with an approved display name on at least one number raises that to 6,000.
  • Authentication templates. Meta grants the authentication category only to a verified business, so until yours is verified you cannot author a one-time passcode template, whether you create one from scratch or copy an existing template onto your account. Marketing and utility templates are unaffected, so you can keep authoring those meanwhile.
The alternative to verifying is volume: 2,000 delivered messages outside customer service windows, to unique recipients, within a moving 30-day period, using templates with a high quality rating. It gets you to the same 2,000 limit and takes considerably longer.
A display name hangs off the same ladder. Meta puts your number's name through its own verification once you reach a higher messaging limit, and an approved name is what shows your business rather than a phone number in your customers' chat lists.

Submit your business to Meta

  1. Open Meta Business Suite and select the business portfolio that owns your WhatsApp Business Account.
  2. Go to Business settings, then Business info, and start verification from the verification panel.
  3. Choose a verification method. Meta offers domain, phone, and document verification depending on what it can already confirm about your business.
  4. Submit your business details and supporting documents. The legal name, address, phone number, and website have to match the documents you upload and the public record Meta checks against.
  5. Wait for the decision. Meta emails the portfolio admins and posts the result in Business Support Home.
Meta reviews most submissions within a few business days. A rejection is not final: fix what Meta flags and resubmit.

When verification fails

The failures Meta reports most often are mundane rather than substantive:
  • The legal name does not match. Use the name exactly as it appears on your registration documents, not a trading name or an abbreviation.
  • The documents are stale or unreadable. Recent, legible, unedited scans only.
  • The address or phone number cannot be corroborated. Meta checks against public sources, so a phone number that rings nowhere and an address with no footprint both stall a submission.
  • The website does not connect to the business. The domain should carry the same business name and contact details you submitted.
Once verified, your messaging limit and template count rise without any further action from you, and nothing changes on the Bird side.

Next steps