WhatsApp has rules and restrictions about the types of use cases and business verticals that are allowed to use WhatsApp for business messaging. WhatsApp also does not allow businesses in certain countries to utilize WhatsApp. This guide is intended to serve as an overview of what types of businesses and use cases are allowed by WhatsApp.
Notice: For full details, see WhatsApp's Commerce Policy (whatsapp.com).
Allowed messaging use cases:
- Notifications
- Customer care
- 2FA or user verification
- Marketing/promotional messaging
Forbidden messaging use cases:
- Newsletter or subscription-type messaging, including content subscription
Allowed business verticals:
- Automotive
- Consumer
- Doctors/Medical Practices
- Education
- Energy
- Family planning/contraceptives
- Finance
- Food
- Grooming/boarding services for animals
- Healthcare products and supplements
- Healthcare technology
- Hospitals
- Insurance
- Jewelry
- Legal
- Lifestyle & fitness
- Manufacturing
- Not-for-profit
- Pharmaceuticals
- Products for animals (toys, collars, etc)
- Real estate
- Religion
- Retail
- Technology
- Telecommunications
- Telemedicine (Except in France)
- Transportation and travel
- Veterinary services
- Weapons licenses, safety training
Forbidden business verticals:
- Adult content
- Alcohol
- Animal sales, including live animals, livestock, or any parts of animals
- Currency
- Dating
- Defense
- Digital subscription and digital content
- Drugs or related products
- Gambling
- Tobacco
- Weapons, ammunition, explosives
Forbidden business countries:
- Crimea
- Cuba
- Iran
- North Korea
- Syria
Governments and political organizations:
Government entities will be generally rejected by WhatsApp if they follow the onboarding process without escalating to their existing point of contact at Meta prior to onboarding with Twilio. Generally this means contacting their Meta Public Policy contact. Entities without an existing Meta point of contact have a low likelihood of getting approved.
Please note that government entities working with a software integrator (SI) must use their own Twilio account, not the SI. After approval and onboarding, the government entity can then provide its own Twilio account credentials (Account SID and Auth Token) to the SI for them to perform any necessary system integration.
State-owned entities:
State-owned entities are allowed to use the WhatsApp API. For example, a commercial airline that is partially or fully-owned and operated by a government state is allowed to onboard. If your company falls into this category, please reach out to your account manager during onboarding for special consideration.