Unable to Add Participants to a WhatsApp Community (`403 add_request`)

[jv0098]

Welcome!

• Yes, I have searched for similar issues on GitHub and found none.

What did you do?

I'm implementing an automated employee onboarding workflow using the Evolution API.

Our company uses WhatsApp Communities to organize internal communication, and the goal is to automatically add new employees to the parent Community, allowing them to access all linked groups without requiring manual intervention.

The bot is connected, authenticated, and has Super Admin permissions within the Community.

---

Community Information

The Community is correctly returned by the API:

{
  "id": "120363417464733688@g.us",
  "subject": "CXP Brasil",
  "isCommunity": true
}

The Announcement Group is also correctly identified:

{
  "id": "120363399989084954@g.us",
  "subject": "CXP Brasil",
  "isCommunityAnnounce": true,
  "linkedParent": "120363417464733688@g.us"
}

---

Request

I'm using the following endpoint:

POST /group/updateParticipant/{instance}?groupJid=120363417464733688@g.us

Request body:

{
  "action": "add",
  "participants": [
    "5511912508871@s.whatsapp.net"
  ]
}

---

Response

The request is executed, but the participant is not added.

Instead, the API returns:

{
  "updateParticipants": [
    {
      "status": "403",
      "content": {
        "tag": "participant",
        "attrs": {
          "error": "403"
        },
        "content": [
          {
            "tag": "add_request",
            "attrs": {
              "code": "...",
              "expiration": "..."
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

---

Additional Tests

I also tested the same request using the Community Announcement Group:

120363399989084954@g.us

The result is exactly the same (403 + add_request).

---

Expected Behavior

The expected behavior is that the participant is added directly to the parent Community, since the bot is a Super Admin.

If adding participants to Communities is not supported, it would be helpful to know:

• Is adding participants to the parent Community currently supported?
• Is adding participants to the Community Announcement Group supported?
• Is the 403 with the add_request tag expected behavior?
• Is there another endpoint or recommended workflow for adding users to a Community programmatically?

---

Goal

The purpose of this implementation is to automate employee onboarding.

When a new employee joins the company, our system should automatically add them to the company's WhatsApp Community, eliminating the need for manual intervention by administrators.

Any clarification on whether this is a WhatsApp limitation, a Baileys limitation, or an Evolution API limitation would be greatly appreciated.

What did you expect?

I expected the API to successfully add the specified participant to the parent WhatsApp Community, since the connected instance has Super Admin permissions and the Community is correctly identified by the API (isCommunity: true).

If adding members directly to the parent Community is not supported, I expected the API to return a documented error explaining that this operation is unsupported, rather than returning a generic 403 with an add_request response.

Additionally, I expected the documentation to clarify whether Communities are supported for participant management and, if not, what the recommended workflow is.

What did you observe instead of what you expected?

The request is successfully received by the API, but the participant is never added to the Community.

Instead, the API returns a 403 response containing an add_request object.

The same behavior occurs when attempting to add the participant directly to the Community Announcement Group (isCommunityAnnounce: true).

The bot is connected, authenticated, and is configured as a Super Admin of the Community, so this behavior appears to be related to Community support rather than permissions.

Regular WhatsApp groups work as expected. The issue only occurs with Communities and their Announcement Groups.

Screenshots/Videos

Which version of the API are you using?

Version: 2.3.7

What is your environment?

Linux

Other environment specifications

No response

If applicable, paste the log output

No response

Additional Notes

No response