How to Get Verified on Instagram in 2026 (Both Blue Ticks, Explained)

There are two ways to get a blue tick on Instagram in 2026, and only one of them is still open to most people. Meta Verified is a paid subscription, roughly $14.99 a month on iOS and Android or $12.99 on the web for a personal account, and it requires a government ID and a matching profile name. Legacy notability verification is still granted, is free, and cannot be applied for on demand. Neither one increases your reach. What they buy you is impersonation protection and support you can actually reach.

The two blue ticks, side by side

• Meta Verified (paid). Subscription. Requires a government-issued ID whose name matches your profile name, a profile photo with your face, two-factor authentication on, and an account at least 30 days old. Approval typically lands within 48 hours. The badge disappears the moment you stop paying.
• Legacy verification (free). Granted for notability, not for followers. Meta looks for coverage in independent news sources it recognises. There is no reliable application flow for it any more, and it is not something you can buy your way into.

How many followers do you need to get verified on Instagram?

None. This is the single most persistent myth about Instagram verification. Meta Verified has no follower threshold at all, and legacy verification never had one either. It was always about whether a person or brand was notable, which Meta assesses using press coverage from sources that are not press releases, sponsored posts or paid placements. Accounts with 50 million followers have been rejected. Local journalists with 4,000 followers have been approved.

How to sign up for Meta Verified, step by step

1. Turn on two-factor authentication first. Applications from accounts without it are rejected before a human sees them.
2. Make your profile name match your ID exactly. A stage name, a business name or a shortened surname will fail the check. If your ID says Katherine and your profile says Katie, change the profile.
3. Set a profile photo that clearly shows your face. Logos, illustrations and pet photos are rejected for personal accounts.
4. Open Settings, tap the Meta Verified entry at the top of the menu, and pick the account you want verified.
5. Upload the ID. Passport, driving licence or national ID card. It must be in date.
6. Pay and wait. Most decisions come back inside 48 hours. A rejection does not charge you, and you can reapply.

What Meta Verified actually gets you

• The badge. Identical in appearance to the legacy one. Viewers cannot tell which kind you have.
• Impersonation monitoring. Meta proactively watches for accounts copying yours. This is the genuinely useful part, and the reason most working creators pay.
• Account support from a human. Not a form. This alone has been the difference between a two-day and a two-month recovery for hacked accounts.
• Profile enhancements. Increasingly bundled in: extra link slots, profile visit insights, occasional feature previews.

What it does not get you

Meta has said plainly that Meta Verified does not boost distribution. There is no ranking signal attached to the badge. If your Reels are flat, verification will not change that, and the money is better spent elsewhere. The one indirect effect worth acknowledging is conversion: brand partnership DMs and cold pitches get answered more often when the sender is verified, because it removes the first doubt from the recipient's mind.

Why applications get rejected

• Profile name and ID name do not match, character for character.
• Two-factor authentication is off.
• No face in the profile photo on a personal account.
• Account is under 30 days old, or has a recent community guidelines strike.
• The account is a fan page, a meme page, or otherwise does not represent the person on the ID. These are rejected regardless of size.
• For legacy verification specifically: coverage submitted was sponsored content, a press release, or a paid listing. Meta discounts all three.

Is Meta Verified worth it?

At roughly $180 a year, it is worth it if any of three things are true: you earn money from brand deals and need pitches taken seriously, your account has been impersonated before, or losing the account would cost you real income. If you are building an audience and nothing is monetised yet, it is not. Spend the same money on a proper link in bio destination that converts the traffic you already have, and revisit verification when a lost account would actually hurt.

A note on the accounts selling verification

Every DM offering guaranteed verification for a fee is a scam, without exception. There is no reseller programme, no insider, and no agency route. The usual play is to collect your login under the pretext of submitting the application, then sell the account. If you have already handed over credentials, change the password and revoke active sessions now, then check that the recovery email on the account is still yours.