Overview

Individual onboarding verifies user identity and ensures compliance readiness for regulated financial services. It involves creating a user account and completing the KYC processes required for the user’s country of residency.

Verification responsibility

Each KYC process can be verified by Uphold or by your organization (the partner). The table below shows which verification model each process supports.

Process	Uphold-verified	Partner-verified
Email	Not supported	Supported
Phone	Not supported	Supported
Profile	—	—
Address	—	—
Identity	KYC Connector only	Supported
Proof of address	KYC Connector only	Supported
Customer due diligence	Supported	Supported
Enhanced due diligence	Not supported	Supported
Crypto risk assessment (UK users)	Supported	Supported
Self-categorization statement (UK users)	Supported	Supported
Tax Details	Supported	Not supported

Regional requirements

KYC requirements vary from region to region, and from partner to partner based on their risk appetite and regulatory interpretation. Below is a high-level overview of Uphold requirements. Refer to your Account Manager for specific requirements applicable to your integration.

Process / Region	UK	US	Notes
Email, Phone, Profile, Address	Required	Required
Identity	Required	Required
Proof of address	Required	Conditional¹	¹Only required when identity document does not have an address
Customer due diligence	Required	Conditional¹	¹Only required when doing crypto deposits or withdrawals
Enhanced due diligence	Conditional	Conditional	Only required for high-risk users
Crypto risk assessment	Required	Exempt	UK only - FCA requirement
Self-Categorization	Required	Exempt	UK only - FCA requirement
Tax Details	Required	Required

High-level onboarding flow

1. Create the user

Fetch the applicable Terms of Service for the user’s country of residency, present them for acceptance, and create the user.

2. Complete KYC processes

Core information collection

Establish the user’s basic identity and contact information for regulatory compliance.

Email

User provides their email and proves ownership, usually via a confirmation link sent to their email.

Phone

User provides their phone number and proves ownership, usually via an SMS OTP.

Profile

User provides full name, date of birth, citizenship.

Address

User provides residential street address, city, postal code, country.

Identity verification

Confirm the user is who they claim to be through government-issued identification or electronic verification (e-IDV).

Address verification

Confirm the user resides where they claim to through document verification or electronic verification.

In certain regions (e.g., US), this verification will be automatically attempted if the provided document for Identity Verification contains address data (e.g. driver’s license).

Due diligence assessment

Assess user risk profile and understand intended use.

Customer due diligence

Risk assessment questionnaire to evaluate customer profile and intended use. Determines if Enhanced due diligence is needed.

Enhanced due diligence

Additional documentation on source of funds and wealth. Only triggered if Customer due diligence indicates a high-risk profile.

Financial promotions (UK only)

UK users only - Financial Conduct Authority regulatory requirements

Crypto risk assessment

Knowledge assessment to evaluate user’s understanding of cryptocurrency risks before trading.

Self-categorization statement

User self-identifies their investor experience level to determine appropriate protections.

Tax information

Comply with tax reporting obligations.

3. Monitor status & verify capabilities

Check KYC status

View completion status of all required processes and identify any remaining blockers.

Verify user capabilities

See what actions the user can perform: deposits, trades, withdrawals, and transaction limits.

Monitor with webhooks

Subscribe to KYC webhooks for real-time status updates.

Best practices

Progressive onboarding

Don’t request all information upfront. Start with basic processes (email, phone, profile, address) and collect sensitive documents only when needed for specific capabilities.

Clear document guidelines

Provide clear requirements for document quality, accepted types, and file formats. Reduces verification failures significantly.

Periodic review

Some processes require periodic review, in which their status may change to pending, signaling that the user must provide updated information.

• profile: The user must confirm their profile information is still accurate.
• address: The user must confirm their address is still accurate.
• identity: The user must provide up-to-date identity when their underlying document is about to expire.
• customerDueDiligence: The user must redo the form after a certain period of time.
• selfCategorizationStatement: The user must redo the form after a certain period of time.

When:

The periodic review might be triggered at any time, but usually it happens between 1-3 years after the last submission or when important documents are about to expire, such as the identity document (typically 30-90 days before the document’s expiration date).

How to handle:

1. Monitor KYC webhooks to catch core.kyc.*.status-changed events in real time.
2. Collect and submit updated information.