What Is A Yellow Checkmark On Twitter? Here's Why New Colors Are Coming

Elon Musk’s Twitter is a world where you can buy a blue verified checkmark for your personal account for $8. Now, some accounts will be swapping the light blue in favor of a yellow or gray checkmark. Twitter’s verification service relaunched on Dec. 12, according to a tweet from the company on Dec. 10, and it comes some new checkmarks you’ll soon start to see pop up on your feed. If you’ve already begun noticing them and wonder what a yellow checkmark means on Twitter, here are some answers.

The Twitter saga of late 2022 is widely known: Musk closed his deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion on Oct. 27. Since then, the social media platform has been under fire for mass layoffs and a growing mountain of uncertainty around the bird app’s future. On Nov. 9, Twitter launched its subscription service, Twitter Blue, to users in the U.S. for the first time — ot was first introduced as a new feature in June 2021 in Australia and Canada, but didn’t include a pay-to-play verification option. Less than 48 hours after its launch in the United States, Twitter Blue was shut down after trolls began taking advantage of the verification service. And while the parody accounts were hilarious, for the most part, what wasn’t a laughing matter was Twitter Blue’s abrupt end, er, pause?

Just over a month later, the platform relaunched Twitter Blue on Dec. 12, although it’s unclear if it was fully rolled out. According to the Dec. 10 tweet, it’ll cost $8 per month to subscribe to Twitter Blue on desktop or $11 per month on iOS.

With the relaunch came a new approval process, plus yellow and gray checkmarks. As of publication, Twitter’s account is branded with a yellow checkmark, that is officially called a “gold checkmark,” per the company’s Dec. 10 tweet.

What Do The Yellow Checkmarks Mean?

You’re already familiar with blue checkmarks, but now it’s time to learn about yellow and gray checkmarks, too. The “gold checkmarks,” which also look yellow to many people, represent verified businesses, according to Twitter’s Dec. 10 tweet. The gold checkmark indicates it’s “an official business account through Twitter Blue for Business,” which is a new service Twitter is testing for “corporate entities,” per the Twitter Blue FAQs.

As of Dec. 12, it doesn’t appear that all verified business accounts were brought onboard the gold checkmark train. It’s also unclear what the process is like to get the gold checkmark, since some accounts had blue checkmarks under the old verification process, which didn’t require payment. There appear to be many official business Twitter accounts rocking gold checkmarks as of Dec. 12, including Apple News, Mountain Dew, and Samsung. But even among one brand, there are still a mix of gold (yellow) and blue checkmarks: The official Pepsi account has a gold checkmark, while Pepsi India is still blue, but Pepsi Brasil is gold. So, it remains a mystery what the process is like behind the scenes to convert existing (pre Twitter Blue relaunch) blue checkmark businesses to gold.

Per Twitter’s Dec. 10, it seems that verified businesses that pay for Twitter Blue after its relaunch will be given a gold checkmark, but again, it’s unclear how that process works and if the companies have to apply for the gold check.

If you’re curious about which accounts are paying to subscribe to Twitter Blue and which were previously verified with a “legacy blue checkmark” under the prior criteria of “active, notable, authentic,” you can find out by clicking on the checkmark on the account’s profile page. A pop-up will provide more information about the account. For gold checkmark pages, it’ll say “This account is verified because it’s an official business on Twitter.” From there, though, it’ll be less clear whether a business paid for the verification or if it was transferred over from a legacy blue check.

Grey Checkmarks Coming Soon

Grey checkmarks will be rolled out later in the week for “government and multilateral accounts,” according to Twitter’s Dec. 10 tweet.

With an array of new checkmarks, you may wonder if a new crop of parody accounts will come around. It appears the company is preparing for just that. Twitter’s director of product management Esther Crawford tweeting on Dec. 10, “We’ve added a review step before applying a blue checkmark to an account as one of our new steps to combat impersonation (which is against the Twitter Rules).” As for its effectiveness, you’ll have to wait and see.

Where Is Twitter Blue Available?

Twitter Blue is currently available in five countries — the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. However, the service “will be rapidly expanding to other countries,” Crawford tweeted. “It’s top of mind for the team.”

No word on if any other colors will be joining the Twitter Blue rainbow.