Getting your WhatsApp Business verified

Three different things called ‘verification’

It is the most common mix-up, so let’s clear it first:

• Business verification in Meta. Meta checks that your business legally exists and that you can represent it. It is free, done from Meta Business Suite, and it is what the WhatsApp Business Platform asks for before letting a number do more, such as messaging more people a day or applying for a badge. It doesn’t give you a badge by itself; Meta’s help page says so in as many words.
• The verified badge on the Platform. What many people in the UK still call the ‘green tick’ is now a blue checkmark. On the Platform it comes with an Official Business Account, which is free but has conditions: at least 30 days on the Platform, a verified business, two-step verification and an approved display name. Meta doesn’t grant it to numbers that use the WhatsApp Business app.
• Meta Verified, the paid monthly subscription inside the app, with support, impersonation protection and the option of a badge.

This guide is mostly about the first, because it is the one that unlocks everything else. If you only use the WhatsApp Business app on your phone, you don’t need it at all; you need it as soon as you connect your number to an assistant, a booking system or any service that uses the Platform, such as Conserjía.

What Meta asks for

Meta wants to confirm two things: your business’s legal name, and its official address or phone number. According to its list of accepted documents, these are the main types:

• Certificate or articles of incorporation. For a UK limited company, the certificate of incorporation from Companies House.
• Business registration or licence.
• A government-issued tax document, such as a VAT registration certificate. Self-filed tax documents aren’t accepted.
• A business bank statement.
• A utility bill, only for the address and phone number, and only if it carries the legal business name.

Documents must be current, issued by the relevant authority and in one of the languages Meta lists, which include English and Spanish. If your company is registered in Spain, your Spanish papers work as they are: the deed of incorporation or the company’s tax ID card. Cover any personal data Meta doesn’t need, such as a National Insurance number. Sole traders have fewer options, since there is no certificate of incorporation: a VAT certificate or a licence in the business name is the usual route, if you have one.

The steps

1. Log in to Meta Business Suite with an account that has full control of the business portfolio.
2. Go to Security Centre and click Start verification. If it says your portfolio is ineligible, you don’t need to do it there.
3. Enter the legal name, address, phone number and website exactly as they appear on your documents. The website must load and use https://.
4. Confirm the details. If Meta can’t find a matching record, choose the option saying your business isn’t listed and upload documents.
5. Choose how to confirm your connection: email, phone call, text, WhatsApp message or domain verification. An email address on your own domain is the method that causes least trouble.
6. Click Done and wait. Meta says a decision can take up to 14 business days, and editing your business details afterwards means verifying again.

Why it gets rejected

Meta’s page on rejections lists the official reasons: false or misleading information, claiming a business you can’t represent, trying to get around the review, and a website that doesn’t load, isn’t HTTPS or links to an error. In practice, most rejections come down to details:

• The details don’t match. ‘Ltd’ on the form and ‘Limited’ on the certificate, a trading name instead of the legal name, a different address on the website.
• The document is unreadable, expired or partial. A crooked scan, the first page of two, an old bill.
• The website doesn’t show who you are. Legal name, registered address and a privacy policy on the site make the cross-check easy.
• The document has been edited. Any change is detectable, and Meta can go further than a rejection.

If you are rejected

• Read the reason, even if it is one line.
• Fix only that and resubmit. Don’t change everything else ‘just in case’: each change is a new comparison that can fail.
• If you think it is a mistake, the same page says you may be able to appeal from Security Centre. Write as if the reader has two minutes: what the business is, which document proves what, and why it matches.
• Don’t open a second business portfolio to ‘try again’. With the same details as a rejected one, it looks exactly like the circumvention Meta’s rules describe.

Meta Verified, in the app

If what you want is the badge on the WhatsApp Business app, the route is Meta Verified. According to the help centre, it isn’t available everywhere: if Meta Verified doesn’t appear under Settings or Business Tools, it isn’t available to you yet. There are several plans, with a badge, impersonation protection, in-app support and more linked devices on the higher ones; Meta publishes the current prices on its Meta Verified page and says they can change with offers. Paying doesn’t guarantee the badge: the help centre says Meta may verify you automatically, ask for documents or subscribe you without a verification option. Meta says the review can take up to three business days.

For a small business the question is simple: does a badge change anything for your customers? For a salon or a garage whose customers already know the number, rarely. For a business that gets impersonated, it might.

Before you start, get the website ready

Half of the ‘we couldn’t confirm your business’ problems disappear with a website that says who you are: legal name, company number and registered address in the footer, a privacy policy, and the same phone and name you are about to type into Meta. It is worth an hour before clicking Start verification, because once rejected, everything goes slower.

And if you are verifying because you are about to connect an assistant to your number, read what WhatsApp Business is and where the app falls short first: verification is the paperwork, but whether an assistant works depends on how your diary and payments are set up.