Guide · Troubleshooting · For the owner whose dashboard only says failed
Why a WhatsApp message failed: Meta's error reasons, sorted by whose fault it is
When a message from a business number fails, Meta returns a numbered reason. Your system should show it to you; many only show the word failed. Meta's page lists dozens of reasons, most of them for developers. The ones below are the ones that explain a failed customer message, sorted by whose side the cause is on: the customer's, your account's, or the message itself. For each, what Meta says to do.
Published 1 October 2026
How a failure reaches you
Meta's page says an error can come back at once, as the reply to the send, or later, as a notice to your system when the message could not be delivered, and often both. It also asks developers to build on the numeric code and the details text, not on the error's title, which Meta says it will eventually stop sending. For you that means one thing: ask whoever runs your system to show the code next to every failed message. Without it, the rest of this page cannot be applied.
The cause is on the customer's side
- 131026: could not be delivered
- Meta's list of reasons: the number is not on WhatsApp, the person has not accepted WhatsApp's current terms, or they run a WhatsApp version too old to receive business messages. Nothing on your side fixes this; confirm the number with the customer another way.
- 131050: they opted out of your marketing
- The customer chose to stop receiving marketing messages from your business. Meta says not to retry; the messages will not arrive. Your system can subscribe to a notice that tells it when a customer stops or resumes, so the list stays clean.
- 131049: Meta held it back
- Meta's wording is that the message was not delivered to maintain healthy ecosystem engagement. This is the per-person limit on marketing templates. Meta says to wait at least 24 hours before trying that person again, and warns that retrying sooner only produces the same error.
- 130472: this customer is in Meta's experiment group
- Meta's experiments page explains this one: a very small share of WhatsApp users receive no marketing templates from any business, as an ongoing experiment with no end date and no opt-out. The message is not sent and not billed, and resending produces the same code. The only way through is for the customer to write to you first, which opens a window in which the template can be sent.
- 131047: the 24-hour window has closed
- More than 24 hours have passed since the customer last wrote to you. Meta's remedy: send a template instead.
- 131056: too many to one person too fast
- Too many messages from your number to the same customer in a short time. Wait and retry that one person; other customers are unaffected.
The 24-hour window guide and the opt-in guide cover the two mechanisms behind the most common of these.
The cause is your account
- 131048: your number has hit its limit
- Meta says there are restrictions on how many messages this number may send, possibly because too many earlier messages were blocked or reported as spam, and points you to the quality status in WhatsApp Manager.
- 131037: no approved display name
- The sending number does not have an approved display name. Meta's remedy is to change it and get it approved.
- 133010 and 131045: the number is not registered
- The number has not been registered on the platform, or registration failed. Register it, then try again.
- 131042: a payment problem
- Meta's own list of common causes: no payment account attached to the WhatsApp business account, a credit line over its limit or not active, the account deleted or suspended, no timezone set, or a currency problem. Billing, not messaging, is where to look.
- 131031 and 368: restricted, or a wrong PIN
- The account has been restricted or disabled for a policy violation, or, Meta adds for 131031, something in the request did not match what is set on the account, such as a wrong two-step verification PIN.
- 130497: not allowed in that country
- The account is restricted from messaging people in certain countries, which Meta ties to the business category under its messaging policy.
- 131063: marketing switched off for this connection
- The template is marketing, and the business has a setting on its Messaging account that disables marketing templates through the Cloud API. A setting someone chose, not a fault.
- 131057: maintenance mode
- The account is temporarily in maintenance, which Meta says can happen during a throughput upgrade. Wait.
See the quality rating guide, the display name guide, the registration guide and the policy violations guide for what sits behind each.
The cause is the message, or the moment
- 131051: unsupported message type
- Something was sent that WhatsApp does not accept. The guide to message types lists what is allowed.
- 131053: the attachment could not be uploaded
- Usually an unsupported or mislabelled file. Meta's advice is to inspect the file and confirm its real type matches its name.
- 130429: sending too fast overall
- Your system has reached the platform's throughput limit. Slow down or retry later; this is about the rate across all customers, unlike 131056 above.
- 131016 and 131000: Meta's side
- A service is temporarily unavailable, or an unknown error occurred. Meta says to check its platform status page and retry; if an unknown error persists, open a support ticket.
Three codes that are not failures of a message at all
Questions
Our dashboard just says failed. Is that normal?
It is common, but it is a choice by whoever built the system. Meta returns a numeric code with every failure and asks developers to build on it. Ask for the code to be shown next to each failed message; this page is useless without it.
A campaign had hundreds of failures with 131049. Should we resend?
Not within 24 hours. Meta says that code means it held the message back under its per-person marketing limit, and that resending sooner only produces the same error. Resend later, and expect some to fail again, because Meta's limit lasts different lengths of time for different people.
One customer always fails with 130472. Is our number blocked?
No. Meta's experiments page says that code marks a customer in a small group Meta keeps out of all marketing templates, from every business, and that the message is neither sent nor billed. Nothing about your number is wrong. If the message matters, reach them another way and ask them to message you; once they do, a template can be sent inside that window.
Everything started failing this morning. Where do we look first?
At the code. If it is 190 or in the 200s, the connection between your system and Meta has lapsed and your provider fixes it in minutes. If it is 131042, it is billing. If it is 131031 or 368, open Business Support Home for a policy notice. If it is 131048, check the number's quality rating.
A customer says they never got our message, but we see no error.
Then Meta accepted it. Check whether it shows as delivered or only sent; a phone that is off or offline delays delivery without any error. If it never reaches delivered, the customer's phone, not your number, is the place to look.
Sources
- Meta's developer documentation: Error codes, read 1 October 2026.
- Meta's developer documentation: Experiments, read 1 October 2026.
More plain-language notes like this one are on the guides page.
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