On 29 June 2026 WhatsApp announced the biggest change to how people find each other since the app launched: usernames. For seventeen years the only way to message someone on WhatsApp was to have their phone number. With a username, a person can hand out a handle instead, and the people they talk to never see the number behind it.
This guide covers what WhatsApp has said so far, how to reserve a username, the rules and the optional username key, and then the part most coverage skips: what it means for a business when a growing share of customers arrive without a phone number, and how to keep a customer list that still works.
What WhatsApp usernames are
A username is an optional handle attached to your WhatsApp account. Share it instead of your number, and someone can start a chat with you by typing it exactly. WhatsApp has said that once the feature is live, people who reach you through your username will not see your phone number.
Two design choices are worth noticing. First, there is no username search. WhatsApp has said you need an exact match to start a conversation, so nobody can browse or guess their way through a directory of people. Second, usernames are optional. Your number keeps working as it always has, and contacts who already have it are unaffected.
WhatsApp opened username reservations ahead of the launch and described the rollout itself as gradual, over the months following the announcement. If you do not see the option yet, that is expected.
How to reserve your WhatsApp username
- 1
Update WhatsApp
The option arrives with app updates and is switched on account by account, so an up-to-date app is the first requirement.
- 2
Open Settings, then Account, then Username
Reports from the announcement place the option there, and it is also reachable from your profile. If the row is missing, your account has not been enabled yet.
- 3
Pick a handle that follows the rules
Three to thirty-five characters, made of letters, numbers, periods and underscores. Reports add that it must contain at least one letter and cannot look like a web address.
- 4
Claim your existing brand handle if you have one
WhatsApp has said creators, small businesses and organisations can claim the username they already use on Instagram or Facebook, so a brand can be the same handle everywhere.
- 5
Decide whether to set a username key
The key is optional. The next section explains what it does and when it helps.
Reserve the handle your business is known by even if you are not ready to use it. A username is first come, first served, and an impersonator holding your brand name is a customer-trust problem you do not want to discover later.
The username key: a four-digit gate for first contact
A public handle invites strangers. WhatsApp’s answer is the username key: an optional four-digit code you set. When it is on, someone who knows your username but is not already a contact must also enter the key before their first message reaches you. Messages from people without the key go to a Requests folder instead of your main chat list.
For a private person the key is a good default. For a business it is usually the wrong choice: the whole point of a business handle is that new customers can reach you without friction. If you publish a username on a shop window or a website, leave the key off, and rely on blocking and reporting for the rare abuser.
Does this mean WhatsApp without a phone number?
Not quite, and the distinction matters. You still need a phone number to create a WhatsApp account; the username sits on top of it. What changes is who gets to see that number. Before usernames, everyone you messaged saw it, along with everyone in every group you joined. With a username, the people who reach you through it do not.
So "WhatsApp without a phone number" now has an honest answer: you cannot sign up without one, but you can use WhatsApp without handing it out.
Related: WhatsApp virtual numbers: what works and what gets banned
What changes for a business
Every business tool built on WhatsApp has assumed the same thing: a customer is a phone number. The number was the record key in the CRM, the way to tell whether a new chat was an existing customer, the thing you exported to a spreadsheet and the fallback for an SMS or a call. Usernames remove that guarantee. A customer who writes to you from a username is a real customer in a real conversation, and you do not have their number unless they choose to give it.
This is not a future problem. The plumbing that makes usernames possible, an account identifier that is not a phone number, has been rolling out for months, and tools that connect to WhatsApp already receive a large share of new conversations with no number attached. In our own data, nine out of ten new one-to-one conversations arrived that way in September 2026. Our LID guide explains the mechanism in detail.
Businesses on the official WhatsApp Business API face the same shift through a different door. API vendors report that Meta now identifies users to a business with a business-scoped user ID, and that the phone number arrives in messages only under certain conditions. The practical instruction they give their customers is the same one we would give: stop treating the phone number as the key to the customer record.
- Expect new chats with no number. Your process for a new lead cannot start with "copy the number from the chat".
- Ask for what you need. If you need a number for delivery, SMS or a call, or an email for an invoice, ask in the conversation. It is now the only reliable source.
- Watch for duplicates. A long-standing customer who switches to a username can appear as a brand-new anonymous chat next to their old thread.
- Check your tools for fake numbers. Some software turns the anonymous account ID into something that looks like a phone number and stores it. That is how records get attached to the wrong person.
- Publish your own handle. A username on your website, packaging and receipts is easier to type than a number, and you keep the same name as on Instagram and Facebook.
Related: WhatsApp LIDs: why chats arrive without a phone number
How Spun handles customers who have no number
Spun connects to the WhatsApp number you already have by scanning a QR code, the same linked-device mechanism as WhatsApp Web, and turns it into an inbox your whole team works in. A conversation that arrives without a phone number works in Spun exactly like any other: it appears in the chat list under the person’s WhatsApp name, and you reply, send media, translate and search as usual.
What Spun adds is an honest way to attach that conversation to a person. The contact panel marks the chat "Not identified yet" and offers two actions: link it to a contact you already have, or add it as a new one. One tap, once, and from then on notes, deal stages, tasks, reminders and history all belong to that person, whether or not a phone number ever turns up. If WhatsApp does pass the number along later, Spun connects the two records on its own.
Two things Spun will not do. It never guesses who someone is from a similar name, because a wrong guess merges two customers. And it never stores the anonymous account ID as if it were a phone number; the database itself refuses it.