When you generate your first API key on platform.openai.com, we do require a phone number for security reasons. This allows us to verify your account and ensure our platform remains secure.

You only need to complete phone verification generating the 1st API key not any subsequent API keys after that.

We don't use your phone number for any other purposes, and take your privacy very seriously.

We do not support use of landlines, VoIP, Google Voice, or premium numbers at this time. All of those types of phone numbers are often associated with higher instances of fraud or abuse.

For this reason we only support completing phone verification via mobile phone numbers over an SMS text message, no exceptions.

Yes, we have always blocked VoIP services in the United States to ensure the safety and security of our users. Recently, we have expanded our blocking policy to include VoIP services internationally. This means that VoIP services are now blocked in countries outside the United States as well.

No. The phone verification can only be completed with a text message via SMS (or WhatsApp, if available in your country). The code cannot be sent via email or done over phone call.

If you're not receiving your phone verification code, it's possible that our system has temporarily blocked you due to too many verification attempts or an issue occurred during your first request.

Please try again in a few hours and make sure you're within cellphone coverage, and you're not using any text-blocker applications.

This means our system has detected unusual activity or patterns from phone numbers that are similar to the one you're using for verification. This error is triggered as a security measure to prevent potential fraud or abuse of the platform.

Remember that security measures like this are in place to protect your account and maintain the integrity of the platform. Ensure that your personal information is accurate and up-to-date.

While the location where phone verification occurs has changed from account creation to first API key generation, the requirements around phone verification are still the following:

A phone number can only ever be used for phone verification up to 3 times.

This means if you have 3 OpenAI accounts you can use the same number for all three when completing phone verification on each initial API key generation across those three accounts.

For anti-fraud and abuse reasons, we do not allow you to unlink phone numbers from OpenAI accounts to free up that number for reuse. This means deleting an OpenAI account does not free up the number to get around the limit. There is no workaround.

This may be that you're trying to complete phone verification on the initial API key generation on platform.openai.com using a phone number from a country or territory we do not support.

See Supported countries and territories.

In certain countries you can complete phone verification with WhatsApp instead of via an SMS.

As of Wednesday, September 27th, 2023 the countries we support for that include:

Our default drop-down is set to the United States which looks like this:

Then if you select one of the countries in our list above which include the WhatsApp alternative phone verification option - using India as an example - you'll see this UI:

Then to get your code sent to WhatsApp you can select "YES" and that option appears: