Before your ads can run on OpenAI's ChatGPT Ads platform, your business has to be verified, the same legitimacy check every major ad platform now requires. OpenAI runs it through Persona, a third-party identity provider, which confirms four things: your exact registered business name, your registration number, your business address, and a payment card that matches the entity and its country. The card is where most advertisers trip, and the honest advice is to complete verification before you launch, not while ads are already running.
What verification checks
Persona confirms that your business is real and that you are authorised to represent it. It cross-references your legal name and registration number against public records, checks your address, runs sanctions and identity screens, and OpenAI separately confirms your products and services are eligible under its ad policies. The representative completing it may be asked for a passport and a liveness check.
Documents by country
The specifics vary, but the shape is the same everywhere: prove the company exists, prove where it is registered, prove you can pay from that country. A UK example makes it concrete.
| What Persona wants | UK example |
|---|---|
| Exact legal name | As registered at Companies House, including “Ltd” |
| Registration number | The 8-character Companies House number |
| Registered address | Exactly as on the Companies House record |
| Tax number, if held | VAT number (GB + 9 digits) when VAT-registered |
Get the business-name field on the account to match the registration character for character before you submit. A brand spelling that differs from the registered name is an easy, avoidable rejection.
The card that must match
The payment card must be in the company's name with a billing address in the account's country. A UK account expects a UK-billing business card; a personal card, or a card from another country, is the single most common point of failure. OpenAI states this plainly in its billing documentation: the payment method should match the business entity and the country used when the account was created. Because the account country is permanent, the card decision is not one you can quietly fix later.
The $100 hold and the timeline
When you add the card, the platform places a temporary authorization hold of about $100 to verify it. It is not a charge and usually clears within a few days. Verification review itself typically takes a few business days, though it is running slower than usual right now.
Verify before you launch
The platform will let ads begin serving before verification finishes, then interrupt them if it stalls. We verify first anyway. A campaign paused mid-flight, after you have spent to build momentum, costs more than a launch that waited a day for the green light. Sort the entity, the name field and the card first, then launch clean. When you would rather not navigate it alone, we support you through the verification process.
