Business verification and the green tick
The two different verifications Meta runs — verifying your business, and the official business account badge — what each one unlocks, and what you need to pass.
Two separate things get called "verification" on WhatsApp, and they are commonly confused because the second one sounds like the first.
| Business verification | Official business account (the tick) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it proves | This business is a real registered entity | This is a notable brand |
| Where it happens | Meta Business account | Applied for in WhatsApp Manager |
| Who gets it | Anyone who can show documents | Few — it is not a formality |
| What it unlocks | Higher messaging limits, more numbers | A badge next to your name |
| Needed to operate? | Effectively yes, past the smallest tier | No |
Business verification
This is the one that matters operationally. Meta checks that your business is a legally registered entity and that the details you gave match public records.
You will need:
- The legal name, exactly as registered. Not the trading name, if they differ.
- A registered address, matching that record.
- A business phone number you can be reached on.
- A website or domain using the business's own name, ideally with a matching email address.
- A document: certificate of incorporation, business licence, tax registration, or a utility bill in the business's name.
Where it usually fails, in order:
- The trading name was entered instead of the legal one. "Aster & Fern" vs "Aster and Fern Trading Ltd".
- The address does not match the register. A new office, an old record.
- A free-mail address (
@gmail.com) with no matching domain. - A document that does not show the same name as everything else.
It takes a few days, sometimes longer. Do it early: it is a prerequisite for the higher messaging limit tiers, and discovering that during a launch week is an expensive way to find out.
The green tick
The official business account badge — historically green, now shown as a blue tick in some surfaces — is Meta's notability badge. It says the account belongs to a well-known brand.
Two things worth being clear about:
- You cannot buy it, and it is not a step in setup. Meta assesses notability: press coverage, public recognition, presence in independent sources. Most small businesses will not get it, and that is the intended outcome.
- You do not need it. It changes nothing about what you can send, how much, or to whom. The badge is a mark of notability, not of legitimacy: a business without one is not treated as less trustworthy by the platform, and nothing you are allowed to do depends on it.
If your brand genuinely is well known, the application is made from the WhatsApp Manager. If not, the effort is better spent on your profile: a real business name, a logo, a description, an address and a website all show to the customer and all cost nothing.
What the customer actually sees
Less predictable than people expect, and not entirely in your hands.
WhatsApp decides in roughly this order: the name the customer saved you under, if they saved you at all; then your approved display name; then the badge, where the account has one. Exactly how much of that a stranger sees before saving you has changed more than once and differs between screens, so it is not worth designing around.
What is in your hands is the profile — an approved display name that matches the business, a logo, a description, an address and a website. Those are what somebody checks when deciding whether a number is really you, and they cost nothing.