LINE 101: official accounts people add as friends

LINE is a messaging app run by LY Corporation, the Japanese company formed when LINE Corporation and Yahoo Japan's parent combined. In Japan, Taiwan and Thailand it is where many people chat with family, friends, shops, banks and public services. Businesses reach them in four ways: a LINE Official Account (a business profile people add as a "friend"), the Messaging API (the interface your software uses to send and receive through that account), LINE notification messages (service notices sent to a customer's phone number, in three markets only) and LINE MINI Apps (small web apps that open inside LINE).

LINE is an OTT app: messages travel over the internet, not through a mobile operator's SMS network. LY Corporation runs the app, the business accounts and the rules. On its overseas business page, LY lists about 100 million monthly active users in Japan, 54 million in Thailand and 22 million in Taiwan, and about 193 million worldwide (page accessed October 2026).³ In August 2026 it described LINE as used by over 170 million monthly active users across those three markets.⁴

The official account

A business opens a LINE Official Account and may apply for verification. LINE's help centre describes two types: verified accounts, which pass LY's review, carry a badge and appear in LINE's in-app search, and unverified accounts, which anyone can open but which do not appear in search.¹⁶ In Japan, since 1 April 2026, verified accounts show a green check mark and the separate badge for unverified accounts has been dropped.¹⁷

People find the account through a QR code, a link or search, and press "Add friend"; the account can then broadcast to them and chat one to one. Because a person must add you first, every LINE audience is an opt-in audience by design, and the person can block the account at any time.

The Messaging API

The Messaging API is the documented API that lets software act for the official account: answer questions as a chatbot, send updates, show a rich menu (a panel of buttons under the chat) and link a LINE friend to a customer login.⁵ Since 4 September 2024, a business cannot create a Messaging API channel on its own: it first creates the official account, then switches the API on in LINE Official Account Manager.⁷ So the account should sit in your own business's name.

LINE tells your system about each event (a new friend, a message, a block) through a webhook, an address on your side that LINE calls. Your system then answers in one of two ways that matter for cost:⁶

• a reply message answers an event the person just triggered, using a short-lived token LINE attaches to that event;
• a push message (and its bulk forms: multicast, broadcast and narrowcast) is sent whenever your business decides.

LINE notification messages

LINE notification messages let an official account write to a customer who has not added it as a friend, using the phone number the customer gave the business.⁸ The business sends the number in a standard international format, scrambled with a one-way hash (SHA-256); LINE uses it only to find the matching account.⁹ On first receipt the person sees a notice and must agree to receive these messages, and must confirm their phone number by SMS once every 180 days to keep receiving them; if the person has refused, has no matching account or has not accepted LINE's current privacy policy, the API returns an error and nothing is delivered.⁹ The service is available only to official accounts in Japan, Thailand and Taiwan, and is meant for notices such as reservations or deliveries.⁸

LINE MINI Apps

A LINE MINI App is a web app that opens inside LINE: a menu, a booking form, a membership card. A developer chooses Japan, Thailand or Taiwan as the region a MINI App serves and needs a separate channel for each region.¹⁰

LINE launched on 23 June 2011, built by engineers at NHN Japan, the Japanese arm of South Korea's NHN (now NAVER), in the months after the Great East Japan Earthquake; it began as a simple text-messaging service.¹ NHN Japan renamed itself LINE Corporation in April 2013.¹ In July 2016 LINE listed in New York and Tokyo, raising over US$1.1 billion in the year's largest technology listing to that date;²⁴ it delisted in December 2020 ahead of its merger with Z Holdings, the parent of Yahoo Japan, completed in March 2021.¹² On 1 October 2023 the group reorganised into one company, LY Corporation.²

Since then the changes that matter to businesses have been prices (Japan's plans in June 2023 and its extra-message fees in October 2026),¹²¹³ a 2023 data leak that brought guidance from Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) in 2024,¹⁸¹⁹ a new Messaging API setup in September 2024⁷ and the Agent i AI brand in April 2026.²⁵

• Asia-Pacific. Japan is LINE's largest market at about 100 million monthly active users, followed by Thailand at about 54 million and Taiwan at about 22 million, according to LY's overseas business page.³ Those three markets account for most of the roughly 193 million users LY reports worldwide.³⁴ LINE notification messages and MINI Apps are offered only in these three markets.⁸¹⁰
• Elsewhere in Asia. The LY pages cited here give no current figures for other countries.
• Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. LY reports no large user base here. A business in these regions mostly needs LINE to serve visitors, students, residents or buyers from Japan, Thailand or Taiwan.

The practical test is your own audience: if most of your customers do not live in Japan, Thailand or Taiwan, ask them before you build anything.

• Notifications: order, delivery, booking and account updates to people who added you as a friend, or through notification messages where that service is offered. See notifications and booking.
• Marketing: broadcasts, coupons and segmented messages to friends, within the plan's allowance. See marketing.
• Support: one-to-one chats handled by staff, a chatbot or both, ideally in a unified inbox with your other channels. See support and chatbots.
• Membership: digital member cards and point programmes, often built as MINI Apps.¹⁰ See membership.
• Commerce: menus, ordering and booking inside LINE through MINI Apps. See commerce.

LINE prices the account, not each conversation: a monthly plan includes a number of messages, and the Messaging API rules set what counts:⁶

• Counted: push, multicast, broadcast and narrowcast messages, one per recipient, however many speech bubbles a single send contains.
• Not counted: reply messages; messages to people who blocked the account are excluded too.
• Over the limit: once the month's allowance is used up, further sends return an error, unless the plan allows paid extra messages.

One-to-one chat by staff is also outside the count in Japan.¹² Plans and prices are set per country.

Japan (before tax, as of October 2026): the free Communication plan includes 200 messages a month with no extras; the Light plan costs ¥5,000 a month for 5,000 messages, with no extras; the Standard plan costs ¥15,000 a month for 30,000 messages and is the only plan that can buy more.¹¹¹² Since 1 October 2026, extra messages cost ¥3 each up to 200,000 a month and ¥2.5 each above that.¹³ The June 2023 revision cut the Light allowance from 15,000 to 5,000 messages and the Standard allowance from 45,000 to 30,000.¹²

Thailand (as listed by LINE Thailand, October 2026): a free tier with 300 messages a month; Basic at 1,280 baht a month for 15,000 messages; and Pro at 1,780 baht a month for 35,000 messages, with paid extra messages on the paid plans.¹⁴

Taiwan (from 1 November 2026, before tax): the light plan stays free with 200 messages; the middle plan rises to NT$1,000 a month for 3,000 messages, with no extras; the high plan rises to NT$1,400 a month for 6,000 messages, with extra messages at NT$0.2 each up to 50,000 and NT$0.15 beyond.¹⁵

Beyond the plan you pay for your software or provider, any MINI App work and payment fees. LINE notification messages are priced separately from these plans.

This section describes rules; it is not legal advice.

Platform rules. LY reviews accounts that apply for verification, and only verified accounts appear in in-app search.¹⁶ Its plans, verification badges and features differ by country, so check the rules of each market you serve.¹⁷¹⁰

Consent. A friend has chosen to hear from you, but LINE does not record what they agreed to. Keep your own record of the purpose and an easy opt-out (see consent is a data model). Notification messages carry their own consent step on first receipt and a phone check every 180 days.⁹

Data protection in Japan. In November 2023 LY reported unauthorised access that began with malware on a PC at a contractor shared with NAVER Cloud; it later put the leak at 302,569 records of user information, 129,894 of them about users in Japan.¹⁸ Japan's MIC treated it as a breach of the secrecy of communications under the Telecommunications Business Act and on 5 March 2024 issued written guidance requiring stronger security, including limits on network access from NAVER's systems.¹⁹ A second guidance followed on 16 April 2024; LY said it was not in a position to decide changes to its capital relationship with NAVER on its own and had asked its parent company to consider them.²⁰ Japan's Personal Information Protection Commission (PPC) also issued a request for reports and a recommendation, and LY publishes its progress.²¹ LY reported separating its authentication system from NAVER's by March 2025 and set the end of December 2025 as the target for ending its outsourcing to NAVER and NAVER Cloud.²² In May 2024 The Japan Times reported that SoftBank was in talks with NAVER over control of LY.²³

Other markets. Thailand and Taiwan have their own personal-data laws, which apply whatever app carries the message; ask your provider where data is stored (see data residency).

• Concentrated reach. Outside Japan, Thailand and Taiwan, LINE is unlikely to reach most of your customers.³
• The allowance runs out. On plans without extra messages, sends beyond the month's allowance fail with an error; in Japan only the Standard plan can buy more.⁶¹²
• Replies are free, pushes are not. Answering people in the moment uses uncounted reply messages; pushing updates uses the allowance.⁶
• Blocks are silent. People who block the account stop counting, and stop hearing from you.⁶
• Country by country. Notification messages and MINI Apps work only in three markets,⁸¹⁰ and prices change often: Japan's extra-message fees changed in October 2026 and Taiwan's plans change in November 2026.¹³¹⁵
• Identity. Linking a LINE friend to a customer record needs the person's login or consent; see omnichannel is an identity problem.

Only what LY Corporation has announced or regulators have set:

• New prices. Japan's tiered extra-message fees took effect on 1 October 2026.¹³ Taiwan's new plan prices take effect on 1 November 2026; customers who disagree had to move to the free plan by 27 October 2026.¹⁵
• AI agents. In April 2026 LY launched Agent i, an AI agent brand that combines Yahoo! JAPAN's AI Assistant with LINE's AI features and can be opened from LINE.²⁵ LY has not said how it will change official accounts.
• Governance. LY continues to report on separating its systems from NAVER's to Japan's regulators.²¹²² The capital question raised in 2024 had not been publicly settled in the sources cited here.²⁰²³

Choose LINE when many of your customers live in Japan, Thailand or Taiwan, will add you as a friend, and would value rich menus, coupons and bots in the app they open daily. Add notification messages to reach existing customers there who have not added you.

Look elsewhere when your audience is mostly outside those markets, when your pushes would far exceed a plan's allowance, or when you must reach people who have not chosen you. For comparisons, see channels are not interchangeable, choosing a channel per message, the LINE channel page and the Channels 101 chooser, which channel for which need. The Telegram and Viber primers cover two other regional chat apps.