Documents a Marketplace Can Accept for KYC, and How to Handle the Rest

Every identity check starts with a document, and every marketplace eventually meets a seller whose document does not fit. A passport that expired last month. A provisional driving licence. A residence card from another country. A photo so blurred the name is unreadable. How you handle those cases says a lot about whether your onboarding feels fair, and whether it actually reduces risk.

This post covers the document types marketplaces commonly accept, how TrustVerify's identity check handles them, and how to build a sensible route for everything else.

Start with a policy, not a list

It is tempting to begin with a list of acceptable documents and stop there. A list answers "what do we take?" but not "what do we do when someone has something else?" A short written policy should answer both:

• which documents you accept for automated checks
• which conditions apply, such as whether expired documents are allowed
• what happens when a seller cannot provide an accepted document
• who can approve an exception, and how it is recorded

Writing this down early saves reviewers from inventing rules case by case, and gives you something to point to if a seller challenges a decision.

Commonly accepted documents

Most UK marketplaces build their automated checks around three government-issued photo documents:

Passports. Widely held, internationally standardised and carrying a machine-readable zone (MRZ). The MRZ includes check digits defined by the ICAO 9303 standard, which helps catch errors and some kinds of tampering in the printed data. Our planned post on passport MRZ and selfie checks goes into how that works. [Planned URL, live on publication.]

Driving licences. Common in the UK and carried daily by many people. A photocard licence has a photo and the holder's details on the front.

National identity cards. Common for sellers from countries that issue them. Many have a machine-readable back as well as a photo front.

TrustVerify's identity check, POST /api/v1/kyc/verify, accepts a documentType of passport, national_id or driving_licence, with passport as the default. You can send a single document image, or a named front image with an optional back image. The selfie is sent alongside it for selfie-to-document matching. The KYC solution page explains the flow.

Getting a usable image first time

Many failed checks are not about the document at all. They are about the photo of it. TrustVerify's capture guide sets out what works:

• JPEG or PNG
• around 1,500 to 2,000 pixels on the long edge
• the whole document in the frame, flat, with no glare over the text or photo
• the whole request up to 10 MB

A few interface choices make a big difference:

Show an outline. A frame on screen showing where the document should sit helps people fill it without cropping corners.

Ask for the right side. If the document type has useful data on the back, ask for both sides, one at a time.

Warn about glare. A one-line prompt to tilt the card away from a light is cheaper than a failed check.

Let people retake. Show the captured image and ask "Is all the text readable?" before submitting.

On phones, use the camera directly rather than allowing any file from the gallery. For the selfie in particular, a fresh photo is better than an old one from the camera roll.

Documents outside the list

Some sellers will not have a passport, driving licence or national ID card, or will have one that does not suit an automated check. Common cases:

Expired documents. Decide your position in advance. Some marketplaces accept a recently expired passport for identity purposes because the photo and personal details are still valid evidence of who someone is. Others do not. Either is defensible if it is written down and applied consistently. When TrustVerify reads an expiry date that has passed, the check is flagged as an expired document and goes to manual review; it is not rejected automatically, so your policy decides the outcome. Provisional licences. These still carry a photo and personal details. Whether you treat them like full licences is a policy choice.

Residence permits and other cards. These are real government documents but may not be covered by your automated check. Route them to manual review rather than rejecting them outright.

Damaged or worn documents. A cracked card or a passport with a worn photo page may fail automated extraction while being perfectly genuine. Ask for a better image first, then send it to review.

No photo ID at all. Some people genuinely do not hold photo ID. If your platform has a wide audience, this will come up. Decide whether there is an alternative route, perhaps with extra checks and lower limits, or whether photo ID is a firm requirement. Be aware that a strict requirement can exclude some groups more than others.

Designing the manual route

When an automated check cannot handle a document, the next step should be a clear, recorded manual review, not a dead end.

1. Tell the seller what is happening. "We need to check your document by hand. This usually takes a day."
2. Collect what the reviewer needs. Usually clear images of the document and a selfie.
3. Give reviewers a checklist. Is the document a type you accept for manual review? Is it in date, or within your expiry policy? Do the name and date of birth match what the seller entered? Does the face plausibly match the selfie?
4. Record the decision and the reason. Notes should make sense to someone reading them months later.
5. Set limits if needed. A seller approved through an exception route might start with lower payout limits until they have a track record.

TrustVerify's review queues are designed for cases like this, where an automated result needs a person to look at it.

What a document check does not tell you

A document check, even a good one, answers a narrow question: does this look like a genuine document, and what details does it carry? Paired with a selfie-to-document match, it also tells you whether the person in the selfie looks like the person on the document.

It does not tell you that the person is honest, that they live at the address they gave. The identity check is document data extraction plus selfie-to-document matching. If your risk policy needs more, combine the document check with other signals, such as sanctions and PEP screening, email and phone checks, and device signals, and route higher-risk sellers to review.

Keep only what you need

Document images are among the most sensitive data a marketplace holds. Decide how long you need them, keep them no longer, and restrict who can view them. By default, TrustVerify deletes due diligence check records after five years. Your own copies, if you keep any, need their own retention period. [Planned URL, live on publication.]

Key takeaways

• Write a short document policy covering accepted types, conditions and exceptions.
• TrustVerify's KYC check accepts passports, national ID cards and driving licences.
• Most failures come from poor images. Guide capture and let people retake.
• Route documents outside the list to a recorded manual review instead of rejecting them.
• A document check confirms the document and the face match, not honesty or intent.

Comparing providers? Read our guide to choosing KYC software in the UK.

Next step

See how document checks and selfie matching fit into seller onboarding. Explore TrustVerify KYC.

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