WhatsApp Launches Username Reservations Ahead of Full Rollout

WhatsApp has officially announced usernames — a long-awaited feature that allows users to connect with others without revealing their phone number. Starting today, Meta's flagship messaging platform is opening username reservations to users ahead of an official rollout expected later this year.

The move marks a meaningful shift for an app that has historically tied user identity directly to a phone number. A phone number remains required to create a WhatsApp account, but usernames now give users a way to share their presence on the platform without exposing that detail to every new contact.

How WhatsApp Usernames Work

Picking a Username

WhatsApp usernames can be between 3 and 35 characters long. Beyond length, there are few restrictions — users can select any name that doesn't violate the platform's policies. Meta has made it easy for businesses and creators to maintain consistency across its apps: anyone who wants to unify their identity can claim their existing Facebook or Instagram username as their WhatsApp username. The company is also pre-reserving usernames for top celebrities, VIPs, and organizations before the feature opens to the general public.

How to Reserve Your Username

Users will receive an in-app notification once the reservation option becomes available in their country. From there, the process is simple: go to Settings > Account > Username to select a name. WhatsApp is also rolling out a username key — an optional privacy layer that requires others to know this secondary code before they can message you, adding a further gatekeeping mechanism beyond the username itself.

Full Privacy Controls at Your Fingertips

Usernames are intentionally not searchable within the app. Only someone who knows your exact username can find and contact you, so the feature doesn't expose users to unsolicited outreach from strangers browsing a public directory. You can also turn the feature off entirely or swap to a different username at any time, giving you complete control over how — and whether — it affects your experience on the platform.

The Privacy Gap WhatsApp Is Closing

The driving force behind usernames is privacy. Alice Newton-Rex, Vice President and Head of Product at WhatsApp, framed the problem clearly: handing over a phone number when meeting someone new — a classmate, a neighbor, someone at a social event — can feel like an overstep, given how deeply that number is tied to other parts of a person's digital life. Usernames are designed to give users control over who gets to see their phone number in the first place.

At launch, sharing a username still requires doing so verbally or by text. WhatsApp has not yet introduced a QR code option that would let someone add a contact without that person knowing their phone number directly — a gap that several competing platforms have already addressed.

Why WhatsApp Is Rolling Out Reservations Instead of an Open Launch

With more than 3 billion users on the platform, WhatsApp faces an enormous scale challenge when introducing any shared namespace. Rather than letting everyone claim names simultaneously — which would create a chaotic land-grab and guarantee conflicts — the reservation period is designed to prevent duplication and ensure that well-known individuals and organizations can secure the usernames most associated with their identity before broader availability opens up.

WhatsApp Playing Catch-Up in a Field It Helped Define

WhatsApp is not the first major messaging app to offer usernames. Telegram introduced the feature in 2014. Wire followed in 2016. Signal began testing usernames in 2023. For years, privacy-focused users have pointed to those platforms as superior alternatives specifically because they allowed phone-number-free contact — a capability WhatsApp is only now adding to its own toolset.

The announcement also arrives on the heels of a leadership change at WhatsApp, which installed new leadership just last week.