Any business registered in the United States can open a ChatGPT advertiser account, as long as it passes OpenAI's business verification, pays with a card in the company's name billed in the US, and sells something OpenAI's ad policy allows. Consumer goods, local services, travel and entertainment, and digital products and education are open by default. Financial, health and legal services can be approved case by case in the US only, often against proof of a licence. Alcohol, tobacco and vaping, gambling, adult content and dating, recreational drugs and political advertising are closed everywhere. The minimum budget on a US account is 25 dollars a day.
The four checks
OpenAI runs four checks before an ad reaches a user, and a business has to pass all of them:
- +Registration. The legal entity that advertises and gets billed must be based in a country on OpenAI's availability list. For a US company that is settled: the US has been on the list since the platform launched.
- +Verification. Persona, OpenAI's verification partner, matches the business against public records and screens the person completing the check.
- +Payment. The card must belong to the business and bill in the same country as the account.
- +Category. Every ad, its image and its landing page are reviewed against the ad policy, and an advertiser whose main business sits in a restricted category can be refused at signup.
The first three are about who you are, and most US businesses clear them in a few days. The fourth is about what you sell, and no paperwork changes its answer.
What a US account needs
Verification asks for the company's exact legal name as filed with its state, including LLC or Inc., its registration number and its registered address, and the person completing it may be asked for a passport or driver's licence and a liveness check. The legal name on the account has to match the filing character for character. The brand name shown next to your ads can differ from it: Ads Manager keeps an account name, a brand name and a legal name, and changing the brand name later sends it back to review and pauses serving, so set it before launch.
Adding the card places a temporary authorization hold that is released after verification. Billing is postpay: OpenAI charges the card each time unpaid spend reaches a payment threshold, and that threshold starts low and rises as invoices are paid. The minimum daily budget for a USD account is 25 dollars, read as an average across a Sunday-to-Saturday week, so a single day can spend up to twice the daily figure and the week never more than seven times it. The business verification guide walks through each field.
Open, case by case, closed
OpenAI's ad policy sorts every product into one of three groups, and the middle group is open only to US advertisers:
| Group | What it covers | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Open by default | Household and consumer goods, local services, travel and entertainment, digital products and education. General fitness, nutrition and wellness products that make no medical claim. | Every market |
| Case by case, licence may be required | Finance: auto loans, credit cards, credit monitoring, deposit accounts, financial planning, insurance, investments and brokerages, mortgages, personal loans, payment services. Health: consumer medical devices and apps, dental, supplements, disease awareness, health insurance, hospitals and urgent care, testing, minimally invasive cosmetic procedures, vision. Legal: lawyers licensed in the state where the ad shows. | US only |
| Closed | Alcohol over 0.5% ABV, tobacco, vaping and nicotine, gambling, adult content and dating apps, recreational drugs, political and issue advertising, counterfeit goods, credit repair and debt settlement, unproven health and wellness claims, health coaching, individual job and housing listings. | Everywhere |
Three details inside that table decide real applications. Budgeting apps and finance courses sit in the open group, because they sell no financial product. A casino resort can advertise the hotel stay, with gambling kept out of the ad and the landing page. A property portal or job board can advertise the platform, provided neither the ad nor the page points at a single listing.
The review covers the whole path a user takes. An approved ad that lands on a page selling something closed is rejected, and approval is never final: OpenAI keeps reviewing live ads and can limit delivery, remove an ad or suspend the advertiser. Its policy also reserves the right to decline any ad that conflicts with its own business interests or competitive position.
Rules that catch people
The setup rules are stricter than on Google or Meta, and two of them are permanent:
- +The account's country and currency are fixed at setup. A different country means a different legal entity and a new account.
- +The card must match the entity and its country. A personal card, or a company card billed elsewhere, is the most common reason verification stalls.
- +One login can hold several advertiser accounts, a US company and a UK one side by side, as long as each carries its own accurate details and none exists to get around a decision made on another.
OpenAI states the card rule in its billing and payment documentation. The platform can also start serving before verification finishes and then interrupt delivery if it stalls, so a launch planned around the green light loses nothing and a launch planned around the first impression can lose its first week.
Outside the US: the 63 countries
Businesses registered in 63 countries can open an advertiser account: the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, India, the 31 European markets of the EEA plus Switzerland, fifteen markets across the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, and seven across Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Ads reach users in the same 63, so an eligible business can target any of them per campaign, down to regions, cities and postal codes where OpenAI has the locations.
Two rules change outside the US. Financial, health and legal services are closed in every other market, so the middle row of the table above is a US privilege. And some new self-serve accounts can advertise only in their home country at first, until verification is approved and they have spent enough there; OpenAI does not publish the amount. A UK company planning to sell into the US should expect a UK campaign first. The availability page lists every market, and the Europe guide covers the rules that differ there.
Not eligible today
A company registered outside the 63 has one clean route: an entity the group already owns in an eligible country opens and verifies its own account. No agency can run the ads from its own account instead, because the platform has no manager account; how agency access works explains why. A business in a closed category has no route at all until the policy changes, and the policy page carries a changelog worth checking each month.
For a verdict on your own case, the 30-second eligibility checker answers it. Already eligible, the question becomes execution, and that is what we run end to end, from verification to a live campaign. Comparing options first? ChatGPT Ads agencies compared sets out who runs what.
