Accepted identity document

Platforms publish two lists, one of countries where you may live and one of countries whose documents they will read, and yours must be on the second. Bitpanda states three requirements to open an account: being at least 18, holding a valid identity document issued by a listed country, and residing in a listed country. Failing the document test alone blocks you as completely as failing all three.

How it works

An accepted identity document is checked against a list the platform keeps apart from its residence list. Bitpanda's "Who can use Bitpanda?" page states the three requirements and links the last two to different help-centre articles: the document requirement points at article 360000996469, published as "Accepted Documents for verification" and, on the UK verification page, as the "Customer ID documents acceptance policy"; the residence requirement points at article 360013898239, "Countries supported for verification". The requirement is worded country-first, as a valid identity document issued by one of the listed countries, and Bitpanda adds that it might include other documents and countries in future without guaranteeing it.

The pass or fail decision is outsourced. Bitpanda's UK verification page ends by saying that if its verification partners are unable to verify your identity, the company will not override that decision, and the FAQ on the countries article closes off every manual route: no verification by post, via email or in person. What is left is a support ticket, which the UK page offers to anyone who cannot verify because they do not have an accepted ID document.

What the platform may demand of the document is set by the user agreement rather than the help centre. Version 2.0.1, dated 8 July 2026, lets certain Bitpanda companies request copies of official identity documents with a photograph and biometric data, in notarized and apostilled form if required.

Where you see it

The accepted document list decides whether verification is possible at all, and Bitpanda's own FAQ shows how far it can diverge from the residence list. Verification is not available in Argentina, yet the page says an Argentinian passport can be a valid verification document, because the verification providers accept ID documents from some countries the platform does not serve. The paper travels; the residence does not.

The list comes back when the entity behind an account changes. Bitpanda told UK customers whose accounts were created before 1 August 2025 that they had to complete verification to keep using the platform or access their funds, cited the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds Regulations 2017, and pointed them at the same accepted-documents article a new customer gets. A settled account is not a permanently verified one.

On this site, the Bitpanda record marks 189 of the 231 country guides as unavailable. That count is derived from the residence table alone, because the document list is a second axis no country page can model. Read a negative answer there as a statement about where you live, not about your passport.

Accepted identity document vs country of residence

An accepted identity document names the state that issued your paper; a country of residence names the state where you live. Bitpanda answers both failures on one page: if it does not support your identity document or your country of residence, verification is currently not possible, and where the document is supported but the country is not, the reason it gives is regulatory. The residence list is the one that moves with regulation, which is why the footnote reopening the United Kingdom names a specific entity, Bitpanda Broker UK Ltd, and why a ticked country can still carry conditions, as France does with a note that phone numbers based in overseas France cannot be accepted. The document list moves instead with what the verification providers can read. A dual national holding two passports has a genuine choice on one axis and none at all on the other.