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Claim a WhatsApp username for your business

A WhatsApp username is a name customers can search to find you, like @yourbusiness. Your number stays visible. Here is where to set it, depending on how your number is connected, and the rules that trip people up.

5 min readUpdated Nov 2026AssistantLabs Team

What a business username is

A username is a name on WhatsApp, like @willowco, that customers can type into search to find you. They can't search by your display name, so the username is how someone who doesn't have your number reaches you.

  • Your number stays visible. A business username is not for privacy. Your number still shows on your business profile, and customers reach you exactly as they do today.
  • Your name still comes first. In a chat, WhatsApp shows the name the customer saved for you, then a verified business name, then the username, then the number.
  • One name per number. Each name is unique across all of WhatsApp, so if a second number needs a name, it gets a different one.
  • It's optional. Nothing breaks without one. Claiming early just keeps the name from going to someone else.
This is about your business's name. Customers can pick usernames too, and some will then message you without showing their number. That is a separate change, covered in WhatsApp usernames: what changes.

Where you set it

That depends on one thing: whether your number also runs on the WhatsApp Business app.

  • You still answer chats in the WhatsApp Business app on your phone. That is how most businesses connect to AssistantLabs (see Connect WhatsApp). WhatsApp only lets you set the username in the app itself.
  • The number runs only on the WhatsApp Cloud API, with no app on a phone. Set it in AssistantLabs, on your WhatsApp channel page.

Pick yours with the switch below and the steps follow it.

Claim it

  • Update the WhatsApp Business app from the App Store or Google Play. The username option comes with newer versions.
  • Open Settings and look for Username. Some versions show it on the business profile instead.
  • Pick a name, starting with any WhatsApp suggests for your business, and save it.
If you can't find it: the option hasn't reached your app yet. WhatsApp is rolling usernames out gradually. Check again after the next update.

If you try from AssistantLabs anyway, WhatsApp refuses the name and the channel page tells you to set it in the app:

  • Open Settings → Channels, then click WhatsApp. Scroll down past your templates to the WhatsApp username row.
  • Click Choose a username.
  • Type a name, or click one of the suggestions. The suggestions are names WhatsApp set aside for your business, and they are more likely to be approved. Clicking one only fills in the box.
  • Press Claim. Nothing is sent to WhatsApp before you do.

Once WhatsApp accepts it, the row shows the name as reserved:

Rules that trip people up

Most refusals come from one of these. Whichever way you claim, WhatsApp applies the same rules.

  • The format. 3 to 35 characters: English letters, numbers, dots or underscores, with at least one letter. No dot at the start or end, no two dots in a row, no www. at the start and no .com at the end.
  • Changes are limited. Each number can change its name 2 times in any 14 days, or 10 times while it is reserved. Pick carefully rather than trying names one by one.
  • Your Facebook Page or Instagram uses the name. Link that Page or account to the WhatsApp number in Meta Business Suite first, then claim it.
  • The name is on another of your numbers. You can move it, which takes it off the other number. AssistantLabs asks you to press a second time before it does.
  • A new number. WhatsApp asks for a higher messaging limit before a number can have a username. A number that has only just started sending may have to wait.

After you claim it

Reserved means approved but not visible yet. When usernames launch in your country, customers can find you by the name. WhatsApp hasn't published dates or a list of countries.

  • Your agent keeps working as before. Customers who find you by username land in the same chat, and the agent answers them like anyone else.
  • Put it where people look for you, once it is live: your website, Instagram bio and printed material.
WhatsApp can take a name back: for impersonation or a trademark claim, for example. If the row stops showing your name, open the page again to see what WhatsApp has on record.
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What next?

From the AcademyWhatsApp usernames: what changesFor your customers and your numberFrom the AcademyConnect WhatsAppThe full setup guide