Before Priority approves a business, it checks the identity of each person who owns or signs for it. An individual is the record that holds one person's identity details. Create a person once, then link them to any business as an owner or signatory by id. You can create an individual on its own, or inline while adding an owner or signatory. For the full field list, jump to the Request reference.

Common use cases

• Create a person you'll link as an owner or signatory. See Scenario 1.
• Create a person once and reuse them across several businesses. See Scenario 3.

Scenarios

Only firstName and lastName are required to create a person. The other identity details are needed before approval: date of birth, nationality, contact, taxId, a government ID, and a home address. Sensitive numbers are stored securely and returned masked.

Before you begin (all scenarios)

• You have a sandbox API key. See Getting started.
• You have the person's identity details (name, date of birth, taxId, and a government ID).
• You set a unique externalId for safe retries and to resolve the person later.

Scenario 1: Create a standalone individual

Create a reusable person record. Make a POST request to /v1/individuals.

curl -X POST https://sandbox-api.prioritycommerce.com/v1/individuals \
  -H "x-api-key: <your-key>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "externalId": "jordan-lee-001",
    "firstName": "Jordan",
    "lastName": "Lee",
    "dateOfBirth": "1985-07-22",
    "nationality": "US",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "phone": "+15555550142",
    "taxId": {
      "type": "ssn",
      "value": "000000000",
      "country": "US"
    },
    "governmentIds": [
      {
        "type": "drivers_license",
        "number": "000000000",
        "country": "US",
        "state": "TX",
        "expiryDate": "2028-11-02",
        "isPrimary": true
      }
    ],
    "addresses": [
      {
        "type": "home",
        "line1": "100 Example Street",
        "city": "Austin",
        "stateProvince": "TX",
        "postalCode": "78701",
        "countryCode": "US",
        "isPrimary": true
      }
    ]
  }'

Response: 201 Created.

{
  "id": "ind_2c9e51",
  "uri": "/v1/individuals/ind_2c9e51",
  "externalId": "jordan-lee-001",
  "firstName": "Jordan",
  "lastName": "Lee",
  "dateOfBirth": "1985-07-22",
  "nationality": "US",
  "email": "[email protected]",
  "phone": "+15555550142",
  "taxId": {
    "type": "ssn",
    "country": "US",
    "lastFour": "0000"
  },
  "governmentIds": [
    {
      "type": "drivers_license",
      "numberLastFour": "0000",
      "country": "US",
      "state": "TX",
      "expiryDate": "2028-11-02",
      "isPrimary": true
    }
  ],
  "addresses": [
    {
      "id": "addr_7c2e55",
      "type": "home",
      "line1": "100 Example Street",
      "city": "Austin",
      "stateProvince": "TX",
      "postalCode": "78701",
      "countryCode": "US",
      "isPrimary": true
    }
  ],
  "createdAt": "2026-06-15T09:00:00Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-15T09:00:00Z"
}

PCE returns the saved person with a generated ind_… id and masks the tax ID and government ID to their last four digits. Store the id, or resolve your externalId later with ?externalId=. If you send an externalId that another person already uses, PCE returns 409 with DUPLICATE_EXTERNAL_ID.

Scenario 2: Create and link in one step

To create and link in a single call, pass an inline individual on an owner or signatory instead of creating the person here first. See Owners and signatories.

Scenario 3: Reuse a person across businesses

Because an individual is standalone, the same person can be an owner of one business and a signatory of another. Resolve them by your own reference, then pass the returned id as the individualId when you link them to the next business.

curl "https://sandbox-api.prioritycommerce.com/v1/individuals?externalId=jordan-lee-001" \
  -H "x-api-key: <your-key>"

Pass the resolved id to Owners and signatories on any business.

Identity fields

An individual carries two deliberately separate identity fields:

• taxId.type is ssn (Social Security Number) or itin (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number).
• governmentIds[].type is drivers_license, passport, or alien_registration_card. state is required when type is drivers_license.

Before approval, every owner and signatory needs a taxId (SSN or ITIN) and a government ID. The control person must have an SSN or ITIN. See the KYB rules on Business validation and KYB rules.

Onboarding supports US tax IDs only: taxId.type is ssn or itin, and a government ID is a drivers_license, passport, or alien_registration_card. A person without an SSN or ITIN cannot be added as an owner or signatory.

Request reference

"Before approval" fields are not required to create the person. Priority needs them before it can run underwriting, its check that the business can be approved. Until you add them, they appear in the service's missingFields.

An individual carries no status field of its own. Identity is verified as part of a business's underwriting, so follow progress by reading the business. See Status lifecycle.

Next steps

See also

• Businesses: how individuals relate to owners and signatories
• Create a business: create and link people inline in the composite create