It's time to reserve your WhatsApp username

When someone new walks into your life – a classmate, a neighbour, someone you meet at an event – sharing a phone number can feel like a big step. That's because a phone number is personal and it's tied to so many parts of your life. Sometimes you just want to chat without handing over your digits.

This is also true for group conversations. You want to join the parent chat for the sports team but you're not ready to give your phone number to people you've never met.

That's why we're introducing usernames for WhatsApp. Starting this week, you can reserve a username to use later this year when we launch this feature. We're opening reservations early so that everyone has the opportunity to select the username that matters to them. Certain usernames are held for governments, organisations, public figures and can't be claimed by others.

We also know that organisations may want to maintain a consistent presence online. For them, we reserved an option to claim their existing Instagram or Facebook username on WhatsApp.

For more information, please visit our Newsroom.

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