How to Set Up a LINE Official Account in 2026: Account Types, What to Prepare and a First-⁠Week Checklist

The whole picture: from applying to collecting friends

Verification can be added later; it does not have to block step one. Most small shops go in this order: open a standard account, finish the first-⁠week setup, start collecting friends, then come back and decide whether to apply for verification.

What are the three types of LINE Official Account?

LINE splits Official Accounts (LINE OA, the business side of the LINE messaging app) into the standard account (一般官方帳號), the verified account (認證官方帳號) and the enterprise account (企業官方帳號). LINE's FAQ puts it plainly: basic features and billing are the same for all three, and the difference is whether the account has passed LINE's review.

A few things people often get wrong:

A verified account means the organisation is a business, shop or body established with government approval and has passed LINE's document review. It does not mean more features.

LINE's Help Center states that accounts that passed review can appear in search results inside the LINE app, and unverified accounts do not. So a standard account collects friends through QR codes, links and your own promotion.

From April 1, 2026, standard accounts no longer show what people used to call the grey shield; they show no shield at all. The badge on verified accounts has been updated to green and blue check-⁠mark icons. LINE says this is only how verification status is displayed, and chat, push messages and day-⁠to-⁠day operations are unaffected. If your grey shield is gone, nothing has happened to your account.

What should you prepare before applying?

Opening a standard account

The entry point is "Create an account for free" (免費開設帳號) on the LINE for Business website. LINE says you can sign in with a LINE account or a business account, enter the required details and confirm, and that creating an Official Account costs nothing.

Decide these before you apply:

"Whose account opens it" is the one FRIDAI Editorial most wants to flag. Plenty of shops had an employee open the account with a personal LINE years ago, and only discover after that person leaves that the owner is not an admin. Make the person in charge an admin and add everyone else through permission management. LINE also states that one LINE Business ID can create up to 100 accounts, so multiple brands or branches can be managed under the same login.

Applying for a verified account

If you want the badge and search exposure, there is more to prepare. The following comes from LINE's verification application guide; the review team's notice is what actually applies.

Verification is only open to the industries LINE lists. The application form offers options such as schools, cram schools, lodging, medical institutions, and general companies and shops, and requires that the service is offered to the general public and already operating. The documents finally have to be uploaded to LINE's Official Account verification platform (OAV) for the application to count as complete; the result arrives by email and LINE.

A premium ID is "@" plus your own string, up to 18 characters. Once bought it cannot be changed; to change it you have to cancel and buy again. So settle on the name before you pay. The cost of a premium ID and of each plan is covered in LINE Official Account pricing 2026.

The first-⁠week setup checklist

Opening the account only gets you the keys. Aim to finish the six items below in the first week. The order is the order in which customers meet them.

Day 1: Profile and account settings

Get the storefront right first. The account settings in LINE's manual include account name, status message, profile photo, cover photo and location. The profile page can hold buttons (up to 3), business information, and add-⁠ons such as coupons and reward cards, and you can save a draft and publish once you are happy with it.

Prepare these: shop name, a one-⁠line description, opening hours, address or service area, phone or booking method, and a logo image. LINE recommends a profile photo of 640×640 pixels, under 3MB, JPG or PNG. The status message cannot be changed again within one hour of saving, so think before you save.

What goes on the three buttons? Pick the three things customers do most, for example book, see the menu, call. Do not use three links that all lead to your homepage.

Day 2: Welcome message on friend add

The welcome message is sent automatically when someone adds you, and under LINE's rules it carries no message fee. LINE's manual says it can hold up to 5 messages at once but recommends 3 bubbles or fewer, and you can insert the friend's display name.

A welcome message that works answers only three things: who you are, what I can do here, and how to start. The template below is in Chinese because it is meant for your Taiwanese customers. In English it reads: "Hi {friend's display name}, this is {shop name}. Here you can book, check opening hours and ask about products. Just message us, or tap the menu below to start. Staffed hours: Tue to Sun 11:00–⁠20:00; auto-⁠reply picks up first at other times."

{好友的顯示名稱} 你好，這裡是｛店名｝。
在這個帳號可以：預約、查營業時間、問商品。
直接傳訊息給我們，或點下方選單開始。
客服時間：週二到週日 11:00–⁠20:00，其他時間會由自動回覆先接。

The last line matters. Say clearly when a human answers and when it is an auto-⁠reply, and customers are less likely to get angry while they wait.

Day 3: Decide your response mode

This is the decision that needs the most thought in week one. LINE's response settings are under "Response settings" (回應設定) in Settings. At the core it is whether to turn on Chat, and which way of responding to use.

LINE says these can be combined and switched by business hours: you assign a response mode to "response hours" and another to "non-⁠response hours", for example humans by day and auto-⁠reply at night.

One 2026 change affects this decision: LINE says that from March 2026 the response status of unverified accounts is always shown in the chat room and can no longer be hidden. In other words, customers can see whether you are on auto-⁠reply right now, so the setting had better match reality.

Auto-⁠reply messages have two rules that are easy to trip over. LINE's manual states each auto-⁠reply can have up to 5 bubbles, and an auto-⁠reply with no keyword set is sent at random during its active period; keyword replies only take priority when a keyword matches. So if you only want keyword replies, set a keyword on every single one. For more on wording, see LINE auto-⁠reply setup examples.

LINE's own AI chatbot (β) only works once you add the Advanced Chat plan, and LINE says industries such as medical, finance, religion, politics and public administration, and law may not be able to use it. How to choose between native features, third-⁠party tools and building your own is laid out in full in three ways to do LINE AI customer service compared.

Day 4: Rich menu

The rich menu (圖文選單) is the menu pinned to the bottom of the chat room; customers see it every time they open the chat. LINE's manual makes four points: only one rich menu can be shown at a time, and overlapping periods cannot be saved; each area's action can be a coupon, a URL, text, a reward card or nothing; you cannot leave every area with no action; and you can choose whether it is shown or hidden by default.

What you decide first is which cells to include, not how pretty the image is. List the questions customers asked most in the past month; the top three to six are your cells. Choose the "text" action and pair it with a keyword auto-⁠reply, and one tap gets the customer an answer. None of those replies use message quota. For layouts and design, see the LINE rich menu guide.

Day 5: Members and permissions

Do not share one login and password. LINE's permission management lets each person sign in with their own account, with four roles.

LINE's manual notes that an invitation URL is valid for only 24 hours and can be used once, and each Official Account can add up to 100 members. LINE's tutorial also advises giving admin only to a few core colleagues and revoking access immediately when someone leaves or changes role. One addition from FRIDAI Editorial: have at least two admins, or the day your only admin flies abroad will be the day a payment fails.

Days 6 to 7: Add-⁠friend entry points

An Official Account does not add people for you; friends come in through entry points. The methods LINE lists are a QR code, an add-⁠friend URL, an add-⁠friend button, and joining when someone claims a coupon or reward card.

The one worth ten minutes is "friend-⁠add channels" (加入管道). LINE's add-⁠friend feature can generate a separate QR code or link for each channel, source and campaign name, then show in analytics how many friends each one brought in, and let you turn the friends who joined through one channel into an audience. Use one each for the store counter, takeaway bags, the website and your Instagram profile, and in three months you will know which one is worth reprinting.

This step is also about money: once you have audiences, you can replace full broadcasts with targeted messages, which directly affects your monthly message fee.

Common mistakes

There is one quieter mistake: running the account manager's auto-⁠reply and an outside system on the same question, so the customer may get two replies. Before you connect a third-⁠party tool, list which auto-⁠replies are already on in the account manager and decide which side owns which questions. Answering twice in a second does not make customers think you care more.

FAQ