eBay INFORM Consumers Act verification is how eBay meets a US federal law that requires online marketplaces to collect, verify and in some cases disclose information about high-volume sellers. On eBay, you are a high-volume seller once you have sold 200 or more new or unused items totaling more than $5,000 in a 12-consecutive-month period over the last 24 months on ebay.com. At that point eBay collects and verifies your bank account number, tax identification number, phone number and email address, plus a copy of government-issued ID if you are a business seller, and it asks you to review the information every year. eBay states that without this information it may need to put your listings, payouts or account on hold. Most holds trace back to one field, usually a TIN or bank holder name that does not match the legal name on the account.

What the INFORM Consumers Act Requires on eBay

The INFORM Consumers Act took effect on June 27, 2023. It is codified at 15 U.S.C. 45f, and its purpose, in eBay’s words, is to create a safe and transparent online buying process. eBay’s Seller Center page describes the law as requiring marketplaces “to collect, verify, and disclose certain information about high-volume sellers.” eBay presents it as consumer protection that still protects the privacy of individual and small business sellers, which is why the disclosure rules include exceptions for home addresses.

For a seller, the law creates three duties that eBay passes on to you.

1. Provide information. Once you qualify, you supply the bank, tax, contact and identity details the law lists.
2. Keep it current and confirm it. eBay asks you to review the information annually, and you must keep it up to date in between.
3. Accept disclosure at higher revenue. At $20,000 in annual revenue, eBay must show your name or company name and physical address to buyers, subject to exceptions.

What the statute says about the marketplace’s side

Reading the statute itself helps you understand the timing eBay works to. Under 15 U.S.C. 45f(a)(1)(A), a marketplace must require a high-volume seller to provide the listed information no later than 10 days after qualifying. Under 45f(a)(2), the marketplace must verify that information within 10 days of collecting it, and verify any change within 10 days of being notified. Under 45f(a)(1)(B), the marketplace must notify high-volume sellers at least annually of the duty to keep information current, and the seller must electronically certify within 10 days of that notice either that changes have been provided or that nothing has changed. Under 45f(a)(1)(C), if the seller does not provide the information or certification, the marketplace must give written or electronic notice and an opportunity to comply within 10 days, and then suspend any future sales activity until the seller complies.

These deadlines bind the marketplace under federal law. eBay’s own pages describe the outcome in simpler terms, a possible hold on listings, payouts or the account until the information is collected and verified. Plan around the shorter of the two. If eBay asks, respond within days.

How it connects to your registration

eBay notes that most of this information was already provided when you signed up. Its Registering as a seller page lists the identity, bank and business details collected at registration, and states that eBay uses your SSN, EIN or ITIN to verify your identity and to comply with applicable laws, including those related to consumer protection, online platforms and taxes. INFORM verification is, in practice, a second look at that data once your sales volume crosses the line. If your registration data was wrong, INFORM is where it surfaces. The parent topic for registration mismatches is covered in our guide to eBay MC001 identity verification.

High Volume Seller Thresholds

The test has four moving parts, and sellers misread each one.

• Both tests must be met. 200 items alone is not enough, and $5,000 alone is not enough. You need both within the same 12-month window.
• New or unused items only. Sales of used goods do not count toward the threshold. A seller of vintage and pre-owned goods may never qualify, while a reseller of new retail products qualifies quickly.
• Any 12 consecutive months in the last 24. The window rolls. A strong holiday season two years ago can still qualify you today, even if this year is quieter.
• On ebay.com. eBay’s definition refers to sales on its US site.

The statute’s definition is worded slightly differently. It refers to 200 or more discrete sales or transactions of new or unused consumer products and an aggregate total of $5,000 or more in gross revenues in any continuous 12-month period during the previous 24 months. It also clarifies that a marketplace only has to count sales made through the marketplace for which it processed payment, directly or through its payment processor. eBay’s wording is the one applied to your account, but the statutory definition explains why off-platform sales do not count.

The $20,000 disclosure threshold

A second threshold applies to disclosure. eBay states that if you reach an annual total revenue of $20,000, it is required to include your name, or company name, and full physical address in the buyer’s purchase confirmation emails and order details. eBay describes two exceptions that allow a partial address.

• If your address is your residential address, only your state and country are shown.
• If you use a different address for product returns, that return address is displayed.

eBay provides an online process to request an exception. It also warns that if you do not qualify, or if you are not responding to buyers within a reasonable amount of time, it may need to include your full physical address. eBay’s registration page adds that sellers who sell to US buyers may have their name or company name and address shared in order confirmation emails and the order details page to comply with US law.

A related guide is eBay Germany Business Seller Rules and the Impressum Duty.

If eBay has already paused listings or payouts over missing INFORM details, our eBay suspension team can match your bank, TIN and ID records before you resubmit.

Details eBay Verifies

eBay lists what it collects and verifies from high-volume sellers on its US site.

• Bank account number
• Tax identification number
• Phone number
• Email address
• For business sellers, a copy of your government-issued ID

The statute describes the same categories. Bank details may be held by a payment processor as long as the marketplace can obtain them within 3 business days. For a seller that is not an individual, the statute requires either a copy of valid government-issued identification for an individual acting on behalf of the seller, or a copy of a valid government-issued record or tax document showing the business name and physical address. It asks for a business tax identification number or, if the seller has none, a taxpayer identification number, and a current working email address and phone number.

Where each field fails

The reviewer is matching verified data to the account. The first question we ask in every case is whether the TIN and the bank account holder name match the legal name on the account exactly. That is where most failures sit.

• Bank account. eBay’s registration rules require the names on the checking account and the eBay account to match, and the account types to match. A business eBay account needs a business checking account in the same business name.
• Tax identification number. The TIN must belong to the name on the account. An LLC registered on eBay with the owner’s SSN, or an individual account carrying a company’s EIN, creates a mismatch.
• Phone and email. They must be current and working. An unmonitored inbox or a disconnected number fails the “working” test.
• Government ID. It must be current and readable. eBay’s upload rules require documents that are not expired, show the same information as the account, are visible edge to edge with all four corners, and are in JPEG, JPG, PDF or PNG format, with photo IDs up to 4 MB and other documents up to 10MB.

Who provides the ID in a business

For a business seller, the ID belongs to a person who acts on behalf of the business. eBay’s registration page lists stakeholders such as the primary contact, beneficial owners, directors, partners, principal officers and trustees. Decide in advance who that person is, make sure their details are already on the account, and keep their ID current. When the person leaves the business, update the account before the next confirmation.

Annual Confirmation

eBay states that high-volume sellers need to keep their information up to date and that it will ask you to review it annually. Its FAQ is specific. As required by the INFORM Consumers Act, eBay will ask you to review and confirm the accuracy of this information annually. If you have already provided the information, you do not need to provide it again. You only need to confirm it is still accurate, or update what changed.

Under the statute, once the marketplace sends that annual notice, the seller has 10 days to electronically certify that changes were provided or that there were none. eBay does not publish its own deadline for the annual review. Treat the request as time sensitive and complete it the same week.

What changes count

Any change to the verified categories needs to be reflected. Common examples.

• A new payout bank account, or a change of bank name after a merger.
• A new EIN after changing entity type, for example from sole proprietor to LLC.
• A move to a new business address.
• A new phone number or email domain.
• A new owner or a departing stakeholder whose ID was on file.

eBay’s personal information page notes that updates to SSN or EIN require contacting eBay. Bank changes are made from the Payments tab in Seller Hub or Payments in My eBay, and eBay states that changes usually take 2 business days to be confirmed.

Our scenario guide on eBay high volume seller verification and annual confirmation covers what to do when the confirmation request is already in front of you.

Holds Until Verification

eBay’s FAQ on missing information gives a short answer, “Without this information, we may need to put your listings, payouts, or account on hold. Once all of your information is collected and verified, you’ll be ready for your next sale.”

eBay names three holds in that answer, and each one stops something different.

• Listings on hold. Buyers cannot purchase. This matches the statute’s requirement that a marketplace suspend future sales activity when a seller does not comply after notice.
• Payouts on hold. Sales proceeds are not released to your bank. eBay’s Payments Terms state it may place a hold if it detects increased risk, including identity verification issues, and that it will release holds once the associated risk is reduced or resolved.
• Account on hold. Wider restrictions apply. eBay’s account restrictions page lists the effects, which can include being unable to sell, revise listings, reply to messages or update personal information.

The Payments Terms also state that if eBay cannot verify your information, it reserves the right to close, suspend or limit the account and limit access to funds. eBay does not publish escalation tiers beyond the hold, so we treat any INFORM hold as a priority from the day it appears.

When verification is complete but the hold stays

This is the case we are asked about most. The seller uploaded everything, and listings or payouts are still held. In our experience the cause is usually one of these.

• A field still does not match, often the bank holder name against the legal name.
• The upload failed the document standard, for example a cropped corner or an expired ID.
• An older verification request on the account is still open, separate from the INFORM request.
• The change itself triggered a fresh bank verification that has not finished.

Check eBay Messages and the banners in Seller Hub for any outstanding request, compare every record again, and contact eBay through its Help pages with a short, reconciled summary of what was submitted and when.

A related guide is eBay MC001 Verification and Payouts You Cannot Receive.

Business Models and How to Run Each Compliantly

Resellers of new goods

Retail and online arbitrage sellers, wholesale resellers and private label sellers of new products cross the threshold fastest, because every unit counts toward the 200 items. Run this model by assuming you will qualify. Register as a business if you operate as one, link a business checking account in the legal name, and keep the TIN, phone and email current from the first sale.

Mixed new and used sellers

Sellers who mix new retail stock with used goods can sit near the line for months. Used inventory never moves the count, so the new-goods share of each month is the number to watch. Run this model by tracking the new-goods count monthly, so the verification request does not arrive as a surprise during peak season.

Businesses with several stakeholders

Multi-owner businesses fail on the ID requirement when the person on file has left or was never added. Run this model by naming one person as the verification contact, keeping their ID current, and updating stakeholders whenever ownership changes.

Sellers who also sell to EU buyers

If your listings are available to EU buyers and you are a registered business seller, the EU Digital Services Act adds its own trader information display. eBay’s Seller Center explains that both DSA and INFORM rely on the business details you give when you register as a business, such as business name, address, and verified phone number and email, and recommends using a customer service phone number instead of a personal one. See our guide on eBay DSA trader details for EU sellers.

First Verification Compared With Repeat Problems

A first INFORM request is routine. eBay sends instructions through Seller Hub and My eBay, you upload what is missing, and the account carries on. eBay does not publish separate penalties for a late or repeated failure. The law and the Payments Terms describe what follows when information is never provided or cannot be verified, which is suspension of future sales activity under the statute, and possible closure, suspension or limitation of the account and funds under the terms.

Repeat problems usually come from a structural mismatch the seller keeps working around. Uploading a new document each time a request arrives does not fix a bank account held in the wrong name. Fix the underlying record, then verify once.

A worked example of an entity mismatch

The pattern below is drawn from several eBay accounts, with no client details. A seller of new home goods registered on eBay as an individual three years ago, later formed an LLC and obtained an EIN, and switched payouts to the LLC’s business checking account. The eBay account stayed registered as an individual under the owner’s SSN. When the account crossed the high-volume threshold, eBay asked for verification. The owner uploaded the LLC’s formation documents and a business bank statement. The tax ID on the account belonged to the owner personally, the bank account belonged to the LLC, and the documents described the LLC. Nothing matched across the three records, so the request repeated.

The resolution was structural. The owner upgraded the eBay account to a business account in the LLC’s legal name, contacted eBay to replace the SSN with the EIN, re-verified the business checking account by bank login, and uploaded the ID of the member acting for the LLC. Once the account, the TIN and the bank all named the same entity, verification completed and the annual confirmation calendar was set from that date.

Regional Differences and the Law

INFORM is a US law. Sellers on other eBay sites meet different rules, and a seller who lists on more than one eBay site can owe duties under two of these regimes at once.

European Union

Article 30 of the Digital Services Act requires platforms that allow consumers to buy from traders to obtain the trader’s name, address, phone and email, a copy of an identification document or electronic identification, payment account details, trade register details where the trader is registered, and a self-certification that the trader offers only products and services that comply with EU law. The platform must make best efforts to assess whether the information is reliable and complete, using official online databases or supporting documents. If information is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date and the trader does not correct it, the platform must suspend the trader’s offers to EU consumers until the request is met. Article 30(4) gives the trader the right to complain under Articles 20 and 21, which provide internal complaint handling and out-of-court dispute settlement.

United Kingdom

The DSA does not apply to eBay’s UK site. UK business sellers can rely on Article 4 of the retained Platform-to-Business Regulation. It requires a statement of reasons on a durable medium at or before the time a restriction or suspension takes effect, and at least 30 days’ notice before a platform terminates the whole of its service to a business user. The 30-day notice does not apply where the platform is subject to a legal or regulatory obligation to terminate, exercises a right to terminate for an imperative reason under national law, or can show the business user has repeatedly infringed the terms.

How We Build a Verification Response

When a hold persists, our method rests on one position, that the information is accurate, and the hold came from a correctable document issue. The response follows a fixed structure.

• Root cause. Name the field that did not reconcile, whether the bank holder name, the TIN, the contact details or the ID. Name it precisely.
• Corrective action. Show what was corrected and when, with matching documents, and confirm the details now agree across registration, banking and tax records.
• Preventive control. One consistent legal identity across all three, and an annual confirmation calendar with an owner.
• Evidence. Bank, tax and identity documents that reconcile with each other and with the account.
• One request. That eBay complete verification and release the listings or payouts held.

We keep the language factual, cite eBay’s own INFORM page and requirements, and avoid any threat. A reviewer matching data wants a package that matches.

Annual Verification Routine

Track your 12-month new-goods sales against both thresholds and confirm business details each year when eBay asks. We set sellers up on the calendar below.

1. Monthly. Run the threshold check on new and unused items. Note when you cross both tests.
2. Monthly. Confirm the registered email inbox is monitored and the phone on file reaches the verification contact.
3. Quarterly. Compare the eBay account, the bank account and the tax record side by side. Fix any difference the same week.
4. On any change. New bank, new entity, new EIN, new address or new owner. Update the source record first, then eBay, and keep the confirmation emails.
5. Sixty days before expiry. Renew the ID on file for the verification contact.
6. When the annual review arrives. Confirm it is in eBay Messages, review each field, update anything that changed and confirm the rest. Do it within days.
7. At $20,000 in annual revenue. Decide whether you qualify for an address exception and request it through eBay’s process before disclosure begins.

Records to keep for each confirmation

• The date eBay’s request appeared in Messages and the date you completed it.
• A copy of each document you uploaded, with the file name and upload date.
• The confirmation email eBay sends once details are verified.
• Notes on any field you changed and the reason for the change.

These records make the next annual review faster and give you a clean history if a hold ever needs to be explained to eBay.

If your payouts are already held for a tax ID or bank mismatch, our guide on eBay taxpayer ID and payout account verification covers that fix. If eBay has asked you to call to verify the account, see eBay MC002 phone verification, and our annual confirmation guide covers the review request itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is a high volume seller on eBay?

A high-volume seller is a US seller who has sold 200 or more new or unused items totaling more than $5,000 in a 12-consecutive-month period over the last 24 months on ebay.com. Both tests must be met in the same 12-month window, and used items do not count.

What does eBay verify under INFORM?

eBay verifies your bank account number, tax identification number, phone number and email address. Business sellers also provide a copy of government-issued ID, and the details must match the legal name on the account.

How often must I confirm my information?

Annually, when eBay asks you to review it. eBay states it will ask high-volume sellers to review and confirm the accuracy of their information each year, and you must keep it current in between.

What happens if I do not verify?

eBay states it may put your listings, payouts or account on hold until your information is collected and verified. The statute requires marketplaces to suspend future sales activity of a seller who does not comply after notice.

Does this cover EU DSA requirements?

No, INFORM is a US law and eBay’s INFORM page does not set out EU trader rules. Check eBay’s Digital Services Act page for EU listings. It explains that registered business sellers with listings available to EU buyers show business name, address, verified email and phone, and registration number where relevant.

Get Help With eBay Business Verification

Most INFORM requests are resolved by supplying matching bank, tax, contact and ID details. We help when verification is complete but listings or payouts stay on hold, when an entity change has left the records out of step, or when a multi-owner business cannot settle who verifies. We reconcile the records and prepare a package for eBay customer service that a reviewer can approve.

Bring it to our eBay suspension and reinstatement service, submit your case for review, or book a consultation to set up an annual verification routine.

Sellers who also run Amazon, Walmart or Etsy accounts can find each platform under our marketplace suspension services.

Sources

1. eBay Seller Center: The INFORM Consumers Act
2. eBay Help: Registering as a seller
3. eBay: Payments Terms of Use
4. eBay Help: Account restrictions and suspensions
5. eBay Help: Updating your checking account details for payouts
6. eBay Help: Updating your personal information
7. eBay Seller Center: Digital Services Act
8. GovInfo: 15 U.S.C. 45f (INFORM Consumers Act)
9. EUR-Lex: Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act)
10. legislation.gov.uk: Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, Article 4 (as retained in the UK)