How do I move my WhatsApp number to a business account?
It is a supported move rather than a hack, and a number can only live in one place at a time. Before you do anything, decide whose name the account is in. The number is the most valuable thing your business owns on WhatsApp, and businesses lose it every year by registering it to whoever happened to set it up.
Last checked 14 August 2026. Prices on this page are ours and current.
Decide the ownership first
This is the whole page, really. The account should be registered to the company, with billing and administrator access held by somebody who will still be there in three years.
Not the marketing agency. Not the developer. Not the manager who set it up on their own phone in 2022. All three arrangements are common and all three end the same way, with a business unable to reach its own customers.
If you already have it registered wrongly, fixing that is worth more than anything else on this page.
What the move actually involves
A number can be on the consumer app, the free Business app, or connected to the paid platform, but only one at a time. Moving it between them is a documented process rather than a trick.
You will need access to receive a verification code on that number, so do it while you have the phone in your hand and not while somebody is on holiday with it.
Expect a short interruption. Plan it for a quiet hour rather than a Saturday morning, and tell your team it is happening so nobody panics when messages stop for a few minutes.
What you should back up first
Chat history does not always come along cleanly, and this catches people out. If there are conversations you would be upset to lose, export them before you start rather than after.
Also write down the things living only inside that app: your away message, your quick replies, your labels, and the photograph of your price list that half your customers have been sent. Those are easy to recreate and easy to forget.
When not to bother
If one person handles a manageable number of messages by hand and it is working, the free Business app is genuinely fine. Moving to the paid platform for its own sake buys you nothing.
The reasons to move are real ones: you want software answering, you want the number off one person's handset, or the volume has outgrown what a person can hold. If none of those is true yet, wait.
After the move, three things to set up
The business profile, properly. Name, address, hours, a photograph that matches your sign, and your website. It takes five minutes and it is what a customer checks before deciding you are real.
An away message that says something useful. Not thank you for your message. When you will reply, and what to do if it is urgent.
And whatever answers the six questions you get most. That might be quick replies typed by a person, or it might be software. Either way, write the six down first, because that list is the specification for anything you build later.
Do not take our word for it.
What the number can do once software can answer on it.
- Will I lose my chat history?
- Possibly, depending on the move. Export anything you care about first rather than hoping.
- Can two people use the same number?
- On the paid platform yes, because it is no longer tied to one handset. That is one of the better reasons to move.
- Can I go back to the normal app afterwards?
- Generally yes, and it is a process rather than a switch. Ask before you assume it will be instant.
- Do I need a new number instead?
- Only if the old one is genuinely stuck with someone who will not release it. Your existing number carries years of customer history and is worth fighting for.
Tell us what you are trying to work out and we will answer it straight, including when the answer is that you do not need us.
Or email hello@ahlelak.com