Priority must know who owns and runs a business before it can approve it, part of KYB (Know Your Business). You tell Priority by adding owners and signatories. An owner links a person as a beneficial owner, carrying their ownershipPercentage. A signatory links a person who can sign for the business, such as a CFO. The same person can be both. For the full field list, jump to the Request reference.

Common use cases

• Add the beneficial owners and mark the one control person. See Scenario 1.
• Add an authorized signatory who can act for the business. See Scenario 2.
• Reuse one person as both an owner and a signatory, or across businesses. See Scenario 3 and Scenario 4.

Scenarios

Every owner and signatory points to an individual: a reusable record of a person's identity. Supply the person one of three ways, and send only one:

• an inline individual, which creates the person and links them in one call;
• an existing individualId;
• your own externalId, which you resolve to an individualId first.

A business can have up to five owners and signatories combined. For the details Priority needs about a person, see Create an individual.

Before you begin (all scenarios)

• You have the businessId of the business you're adding people to.
• You have each person's identity details, or the individualId of someone already on Priority.
• Exactly one person across all owners and signatories will be the control person.

Scenario 1: Add a beneficial owner

Make a POST request to /v1/businesses/{businessId}/owners. This example links a person who already exists.

curl -X POST https://sandbox-api.prioritycommerce.com/v1/businesses/{businessId}/owners \
  -H "x-api-key: <your-key>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "individualId": "ind_2c9e51",
    "externalId": "owner-jordan-lee",
    "ownershipPercentage": 40,
    "isControlPerson": false,
    "title": "Chief Operating Officer",
    "startDate": "2020-01-15"
  }'

Response: 201 Created.

{
  "id": "own_4b7d19",
  "uri": "/v1/businesses/{businessId}/owners/own_4b7d19",
  "externalId": "owner-jordan-lee",
  "ownershipPercentage": 40,
  "isControlPerson": false,
  "title": "Chief Operating Officer",
  "startDate": "2020-01-15",
  "individual": {
    "id": "ind_2c9e51",
    "uri": "/v1/individuals/ind_2c9e51"
  },
  "createdAt": "2026-06-15T09:00:00Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-15T09:00:00Z"
}

Store the owner id and the individual.id. Ownership is checked on every write: the total across owners can't exceed 100%. For government, non-profit and tax-exempt businesses, owners are added at 0.

Scenario 2: Add an authorized signatory

Make a POST request to /v1/businesses/{businessId}/signatories. Identify the person the same three ways as an owner.

curl -X POST https://sandbox-api.prioritycommerce.com/v1/businesses/{businessId}/signatories \
  -H "x-api-key: <your-key>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "individualId": "ind_7b2d4f",
    "externalId": "signatory-alex-morgan",
    "isPrimary": true,
    "isGuarantor": false,
    "isControlPerson": false,
    "title": "Chief Financial Officer",
    "startDate": "2021-01-04"
  }'

Response: 201 Created.

{
  "id": "sig_3c7e9a",
  "uri": "/v1/businesses/{businessId}/signatories/sig_3c7e9a",
  "externalId": "signatory-alex-morgan",
  "isPrimary": true,
  "isGuarantor": false,
  "isControlPerson": false,
  "title": "Chief Financial Officer",
  "startDate": "2021-01-04",
  "individual": {
    "id": "ind_7b2d4f",
    "uri": "/v1/individuals/ind_7b2d4f"
  },
  "createdAt": "2026-06-15T09:00:00Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-15T09:00:00Z"
}

Scenario 3: Link one person as both owner and signatory

The same person can hold equity and be authorized to sign. Create the individual once, then link the same individualId into both owners and signatories. Set isControlPerson: true on only one of the links, so control is counted once across the business.

# Link as an owner
curl -X POST https://sandbox-api.prioritycommerce.com/v1/businesses/{businessId}/owners \
  -H "x-api-key: <your-key>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "individualId": "ind_2c9e51",
    "ownershipPercentage": 60,
    "isControlPerson": true,
    "title": "CEO"
  }'

# Link the same person as a signatory
curl -X POST https://sandbox-api.prioritycommerce.com/v1/businesses/{businessId}/signatories \
  -H "x-api-key: <your-key>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "individualId": "ind_2c9e51",
    "isPrimary": true,
    "isGuarantor": true,
    "title": "CEO"
  }'

Scenario 4: Reuse an individual across businesses

An individual is shared and standalone: the same person can own one business and sign for another. Look the person up by your own reference, then link the returned individualId to the other business.

# Resolve the person by your external reference
curl "https://sandbox-api.prioritycommerce.com/v1/individuals?externalId=person-jordan-lee" \
  -H "x-api-key: <your-key>"

# Link the resolved individualId as an owner of a different business
curl -X POST https://sandbox-api.prioritycommerce.com/v1/businesses/{otherBusinessId}/owners \
  -H "x-api-key: <your-key>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "individualId": "ind_2c9e51",
    "ownershipPercentage": 100,
    "isControlPerson": true,
    "title": "Owner"
  }'

The same SSN can't back two separate owners on one business; reuse the single individual instead, or the request returns 409. See Create an individual for the shared-person model.

Manage owners and signatories

Owners and signatories behave the same way, each on its own path.

To change a person's own details, see Create an individual.

Request reference

The businessType rules that decide how many owners you need, and their ownership totals, are on Business validation and KYB rules.

Owners and signatories carry no status of their own. Each person's identity is verified as part of the business's underwriting, so follow progress by reading the business and its service. See Status lifecycle.

Next steps

See also

• Create a business: add owners and signatories inline in the create call
• Businesses: how owners, signatories and individuals relate
• Business validation and KYB rules: the ownership and control-person rules per business type
• Status lifecycle: how the business moves through underwriting