The businesses WhatsApp will not carry

Meta publishes its exclusions in several places, and a list headed WhatsApp prohibited industries can be any two of them fused with a third that belongs to a different product. They apply different tests, and a business can fail one while passing the others.

The lists, kept apart

What it excludes	Where Meta publishes it	The test
Organisations	Business Messaging Policy, section 4 and the political section	Who you are
Subjects you may message about	Same policy, section 4, exceptions in section 5	What is in the message
Goods you may sell	The “Meta Commerce Policy”, incorporated by that policy	What is in the catalog
Verticals its AI agent covers	Meta Business Agent Platform, Overview	Not a platform rule

The last row is the one to keep out of the other three.

Who may not be here at all

The absolute bans come first. The messaging policy says “We prohibit organizations and/or individuals who have been deemed to be engaged in terrorist or organized criminal activity from using the WhatsApp Business Services”, and refuses anyone “operating, buying, selling, promoting, or otherwise facilitating the exchange of illegal products or services.”

The rest sit under Policy on Government and Political Use, and are narrower than they look: each names the Platform, not the Services.

We prohibit the use of the WhatsApp Business Platform by Political Parties, Politicians, Political Candidates, and Political Campaigns.

We prohibit the use of the WhatsApp Business Platform by Law Enforcement Agencies, Military Services, National Security and Intelligence Agencies.

The same section refuses the industry around them, down to “private companies that provide voting solutions and systems for elections”. Government itself is admitted on a condition: “We permit the use of the WhatsApp Business Platform for government entities and require access through a Solution Provider (formerly known as Business Service Provider).” A ministry is allowed, its campaign consultancy is not, a police force is refused where a city council is not. One further rule sits in section 4: “Organizations that primarily publish news content must be registered as a News Page through Facebook.”

What you may not message about, whoever you are

This list bans a subject, not a business. Meta prohibits use of the Services for “buying, selling, promoting, or otherwise facilitating the exchange of certain regulated or restricted goods and services listed below, as determined in our sole discretion.” It runs to 15 entries:

“Firearms”
“Alcohol and tobacco”
“Drugs, whether prescription, recreational, or otherwise”
“Medical and healthcare products”
“Endangered species (wildlife and plants)”
“Live non-endangered animals excluding livestock”
“Hazardous goods and materials”
“Real, virtual, or fake currency, including ICOs and binary options”
“Body parts or fluids”
“Business models, goods, items, or services that we determine may be or are fraudulent”
“Real Money Gambling and Gaming”
“Adult products and services”
“Dating services”
“Multi-level marketing”
“Payday loans, paycheck advances, peer-to-peer lending, debt collection, and bail bonds”

A pharmacy is not banned from WhatsApp; it is banned from promoting what it sells there, and if that is the whole of its messaging the distinction buys it nothing. For a dating service or multi-level marketing scheme no distinction is left. Paperwork moves none of it: “These prohibitions apply irrespective of the global or local licenses, registrations, or other approvals your business may hold.”

Three entries have geographic exceptions, which is where a flat list of bans stops being accurate. Meta allows messaging about them “in limited countries, and pursuant to applicable law”, one table per vertical: online gambling and gaming in five countries, alcohol in 82, over-the-counter drugs in 87, with every country on the alcohol table also on the drugs table. Conditions attach, including that messages “may not be sent to people under 18 years of age”. One decides whether any exception reaches you:

You are prohibited from messaging about any Regulated Verticals on the WhatsApp Business App.

Every section 5 exception is a Platform exception, so a business on the free WhatsApp Business app has none. Nor may one reach a catalog: you may not provide “any commerce experiences to buy or sell goods or services that are Regulated Verticals”.

What you may not sell through it

Selling is a different document, used to “govern whether businesses can sell their products and services using WhatsApp Business Services, such as WhatsApp commerce product features like catalog and payments”. A catalog carrying prohibited goods reaches back into messaging: “we may prohibit you from using some or all of the WhatsApp Business Services.”

It is broader than the messaging list. Services are restricted rather than prohibited, and one carve-out is WhatsApp itself: “Commerce content may not promote the buying, selling or trading of services, except on the WhatsApp Business app or through Appointments in Facebook or Instagram.” Recruitment is out entirely: “Commerce content may not promote job opportunities.” So is software: “Commerce content may not promote the buying, selling or trading of downloadable digital content, digital subscriptions or digital accounts.” Health is here too, wider than in the messaging list: “Commerce content may not promote the buying, selling or trading of medical and healthcare products and services, including medical devices or ingestible supplements.”

Health is the clearest case of the confusion

The word does different work in each policy that uses it, and the uses are not interchangeable. The messaging policy restricts “Medical and healthcare products” as a subject, and separately prohibits WhatsApp “for telemedicine or to send or request any health related information” where regulations require more than the platform offers. The Commerce Policy prohibits selling them. And Meta’s Business Agent Overview excludes Health as a vertical: “all verticals are supported except Finance, Government, Health, Alcohol, Gambling, over-the-counter drugs, and matrimony services.”

Only the last decides whether Meta’s AI answers for you. Finance and matrimony services appear nowhere in the platform-level lists under those names, and Government is permitted on the platform through a Solution Provider while excluded from the agent.

Why this matters for us

A product built on WhatsApp inherits all of this. The Business Solution Terms, “Last Modified: March 6, 2026”, bind the business to the messaging policy directly, and we sit downstream of that as its service provider. So a business on any of these lists cannot be a customer of ours whatever we build, and no feature changes it. The platform decides the same way on the reviews side: the published rejection reasons and review management software.

What we could not verify

There is no longer a standalone WhatsApp Commerce Policy page. On 19 September 2026 the old address returned a permanent redirect to the Business Messaging Policy, so anyone citing it as a distinct document is citing a redirect.

Neither policy page publishes a modification date, so we can say when we read them and not when Meta last changed them. We have not tested any of this against an enforcement decision and we will not assert how Meta applies “our sole discretion” in practice from reading the policy. Check your own market in the country tables rather than trusting our count of them.

The short version

Ask which question you are failing. Who you are is settled by the messaging policy and its political section. What you want to talk about may still leave you on WhatsApp, on the paid Platform, with a country on one of three tables. What you want to sell is the Commerce Policy, which refuses jobs, subscriptions and healthcare outright. And any list naming Finance and matrimony services is the AI agent’s, which governs none of the above.