Sometime in the next 30 days, TikTok will send you an email with a date. By that date, you must migrate your shipping to TikTok Shop Logistics Services. If you change your warehouse address or shipping templates without the right documentation ready, you may trigger a verification request that you cannot satisfy. Your shop may be restricted until you do.
We are already seeing sellers who have updated a single warehouse address and have received a request for proof of the warehouse address, a screen recording of the workflow, a U.S. government-issued ID, and a selfie holding the ID. All from one settings change. This post explains what’s triggering these requests, why TikTok is asking for what they’re asking, and who is most at risk.
What Changed in February to March 2026
TikTok is migrating U.S. sellers to TikTok Shop Logistics Services. Seller Shipping (where you handled your own labels, carriers, and tracking independently) is being discontinued in stages. The rollout started February 25, 2026, with completion expected by March 31.
Every affected seller will receive an email with their specific effective date. When you migrate, you will be forced to touch warehouse addresses, shipping templates, and integrations. Those changes are the single most common trigger for TikTok’s compliance verification system.
The shipping migration is not just a logistics event. It’s a compliance event.
The “Trust Reset” Nobody Warns You About
When a TikTok Shop seller changes warehouse settings, shipping templates, or fulfillment integrations, TikTok’s risk systems can initiate what we call a “trust reset.”
A trust reset is when TikTok re-checks an existing account’s operational legitimacy. It’s triggered by change events, not violations. You didn’t do anything wrong. But your settings change told TikTok’s system: “This seller’s operational footprint just shifted. Re-verify.”
Here’s what the trust reset can look like:
- A request for proof of warehouse address (receipt or tax form showing business name and warehouse address)
- A screen recording of the page where you’re entering the warehouse address
- A valid U.S. government ID such as a driver’s license, state ID, green card, or similar
- A photo of yourself holding the ID
If you’ve seen this exact list, you’ve been through a trust reset.
Critical: If fulfillment breaks during migration (shipping delays, missed scans, SLA failures), those performance issues generate their own support tickets. A trust reset, combined with fulfillment flags, turns a simple migration into weeks of back-and-forth with TikTok support.
Why TikTok Asks for an ID Selfie in a “Warehouse” Ticket
This is where most sellers get confused.
When TikTok sends a verification request after a warehouse change, they are asking two completely separate questions inside one support ticket:
- Warehouse Legitimacy: “Is this a real ship-from location tied to the seller’s business?”
- Responsible Operator Legitimacy: “Is the person behind this shop a real, verifiable individual we can hold accountable?”
These are two distinct proof requirements that were combined in the same ticket because the warehouse change was the trigger.
TikTok’s support scripts don’t always distinguish between “prove the warehouse” and “prove the operator.” The checklist arrives as a single list, and sellers assume each item pertains to the warehouse. It’s not.
“The 3PL proves the place. The Responsible Person proves accountability.”
If you use a 3PL, TikTok is not asking the warehouse worker to do the selfie. TikTok is requesting the shop’s Responsible Person (the person accountable for the shop’s business identity) to complete identity verification. The 3PL is verified with documentation: agreements, invoices, and receipts that link your business name to the warehouse address.
Fulfillment Is Not Operations. It’s Distribution.
Most TikTok Shop sellers obsess over ads, creatives, and affiliates. They treat fulfillment as a back-office function. That’s a mistake.
TikTok is incentivized to prioritize orders that are easier to fulfill reliably. The more TikTok controls logistics, the more fulfillment becomes part of ranking and distribution, not just delivery. Even when platforms don’t say it publicly, they routinely reward the fulfillment model they can control.
A U.S.-based TikTok Shop agency we spoke with said most agencies ignore fulfillment entirely. They build demand through content and affiliates, then get stuck when inventory, shipping, and scan timing can’t keep up.
If you don’t have a handle on inventory and fulfillment, no amount of ads or affiliate volume can save the account.
The Sellers Most Likely to Get Hit
Not every seller will trigger a trust reset during migration. But some profiles are significantly more exposed:
- Legacy accounts approved in 2023 or 2024 under lighter enforcement that never completed formal identity verification
- Agency Merchant-of-Record setups running U.S. shops on behalf of clients with thin governance documentation
- Non-resident ownership with a U.S. entity shell, attorney address, and no U.S.-based Responsible Person
- Mismatched addresses where mailing, registration, warehouse, and bank addresses tell different stories
- Multiple rapid changes to warehouse, bank, admin roles, and shipping templates in a short window
- Demand-first sellers who scaled GMV through content and affiliates without investing in fulfillment discipline
The Mistake That Causes Months of Problems
The most common error: presenting the warehouse address as your business’s operational presence when it’s actually a 3PL.
Here’s how it typically plays out:
- The seller inputs the warehouse address as their “company location.”
- TikTok routes them into a verification workflow, assuming they operate from that location.
- TikTok requests an ID and a selfie, and the seller interprets it as “someone at the warehouse needs to do this.”
- No warehouse employee is the shop operator. The support case stalls.
Clarity about your fulfillment model before you make changes prevents this confusion entirely. But the documentation, role assignments, and proof pack required to do this cleanly are not straightforward. Getting them wrong can create problems that take months to resolve.
Don’t Trigger a Verification Request You Can’t Satisfy
If you’re migrating shipping settings this month and you’re not sure who TikTok would recognize as your Responsible Person, or whether your documentation will hold up under a trust reset, talk to us before you touch anything.
If You’re a Non-Resident Owner
Everything above applies to all sellers. But non-resident owners face one additional structural challenge:
You need a legitimate U.S. Responsible Person who can pass identity verification when TikTok asks.
“It worked before” is not a strategy during a migration window. The enforcement posture that let your shop operate without a formally verified U.S. Responsible Person was a gap in earlier enforcement, not an exemption.
When the logistics mandate forces you to change settings and TikTok asks for a U.S. government ID and selfie, the question becomes binary: do you have a legitimate U.S. person who can provide that proof, or don’t you?
This is not a problem you can solve in the middle of a verification request. It’s a problem you solve before you trigger one. The requirements around Responsible Person onboarding (role boundaries, agreements, access governance, insurance considerations, and documentation standards) are specific and consequential. Getting this right requires a plan, not a guess.
What to Do Before You Touch Settings
Your effective date email is either already in your inbox or arriving this month. Once you receive it, the clock starts.
The sellers who plan first migrate once. The sellers who don’t plan spend weeks in support threads trying to prove they’re legitimate after the fact.
At a minimum, before you change anything:
- Find your effective date and plan all changes as one migration event
- Gather your warehouse documentation that ties your business name to the warehouse address
- Confirm your Responsible Person is ready to provide U.S. government ID and identity verification if asked
- Lockdown access: one admin, one device, no unnecessary changes for 30 to 90 days
The specifics of which documentation TikTok will accept, how the Responsible Person should be onboarded, and which governance and change-control rules protect your shop during migration depend on your exact structure: entity type, tax posture, fulfillment model, and current verification status.
That’s what we help with.
Whether you need a pre-migration readiness check, a full strategic plan to stabilize your structure before touching settings, or rescue support because you’re already stuck, we can identify the right path in one conversation.
Migrate Clean. Not Stuck.
The best time to build your proof pack and confirm your Responsible Person was before the mandate took effect.
The second-best time is today.
This post is for educational purposes and is not legal or tax advice. TikTok Shop policies and enforcement practices can change. Always verify current requirements through official TikTok Shop Seller Center documentation.
