Display name guidelines
- Hassan A
When you add a new phone number to your WhatsApp business account you must assign it a display name.
All display names should have a relationship with your business and should not violate WhatsApp Commerce and Business policies. Having display names compliant with the WhatsApp guidelines is required to send messages using the WhatsApp Business API or to qualify for WhatsApp official business accounts.
Prior to completing registration, you may change the display name as many times as you wish. After registration, you must wait 30 days between any display name change requests.
Below are the principles for display names:
Compliance with policies
A display name should not violate WhatsApp Commerce and Business policies. An example for a store that sells wine glasses:
Accepted: ABC Wine Glasses
Not accepted: ABC Wine
Within your company, you may have separate WhatsApp business accounts for different divisions; only those divisions that are compliant with WhatsApp’s Commerce Policy may have a WhatsApp business account.
Accurate representation of your business
A display name should represent:
A business or its service, product, or department
A test account or a demo account and it must maintain an association to the business (e.g., Fresh Produce Test)
A display name should not be:
An individual's full name
A generic term (e.g., Fashion)
A generic geographic location (e.g., New York)
A slogan or a long description
An organization with a government affiliation needs the WhatsApp team's approval. A display name must contain a minimum of 3 characters.
Consistency with external brandings
A display name must have consistent branding with external sources (e.g., a company's website or marketing). An example for a product line named "Fresh Produce Cold Pressed Juices":
Accepted: Fresh Produce Cold Pressed Juices (how it is branded on your website)
Not accepted: Fresh Produce Juices (you changed branding by removing "Cold Pressed")
Not accepted: FP Cold Pressed Juices (you added an abbreviation to the company name inconsistent with external branding)
A display name must have grammatically correct capitalization, and should match the capitalization used in your external branding. Do not change the spacing and do not add any extra punctuation, emojis, or character symbols
Clear relationship with your business
A display name must have a clear relationship with your business (must be referred on the business's website or external media references). For example:
Accepted: Name of a charity mentioned on a non-profit organization's website
Not accepted: Name of a charity not mentioned on any external websites
If the relationship between your company and the brand is not obvious, indicate the relationship using “by [company name].”
Not accepted: Fruit Snacks (Fresh Produce owns the Fruit Snacks brand but their association is not mentioned on any external websites)
Accepted: Fruit Snacks by Fresh Produce
If the display name represents a business that the company is working with (i.e., if the business is an agency, distributor, partner, or parent company), then the relationship between the business represented in the display name and end-client business must be evident and clear in both parties’ business websites. For example, if Global Voyager signs up for WhatsApp and wants to use the display name Commercial Air, they must submit links to both websites stating that Commercial Air is a subsidiary of Global Voyager.
Legal entity in footer
If the official name (legal entity) of the company in the documents that were used for Business Verification and naming on the website is different, we recommend to add a mention of a legal entity to the website, for example in the footer: "Business ABC powered by business CDE"
Working website
A display name cannot be approved without a working website. The website must be verified in your Facebook Business Manager. If your company's website has been changed, the new website must be submitted for verification.