canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/adyen.com/adyen-legal-entity-service # Adyen Legal Entity Management API Manage legal entities, business lines, transfer instruments, and verification documents on Adyen's modern Balance Platform and Issuing integrations. The API exposes 33 operations covering legal entity creation and updates, business line configuration, document upload, terms of service acceptance, PCI questionnaires, hosted onboarding URLs, and verification error inspection. Calls go to /lem/v3 in the test environment and the equivalent live KYC endpoint in production. ## For AI agents Create and update legal entities, attach business lines and transfer instruments, upload verification documents, and run hosted onboarding for Adyen Balance Platform and Issuing accounts. ## Scope Does not handle payment authorisation, balance transfers, or issuing card programs - use for legal entity, business line, and verification document management only. ## Capabilities - Create legal entities of type individual, organization, sole proprietorship, or trust with required verification fields - Attach and update business lines that describe the products and services a legal entity offers - Upload, replace, and delete verification documents (passport, bank statement, registration document) tied to a legal entity - Generate hosted onboarding links so legal entities can complete verification in an Adyen-hosted flow - Inspect verification errors against a legal entity to see which fields or documents need attention - Capture and look up Terms of Service acceptances and tax electronic delivery consent per legal entity - Configure transfer instruments (bank accounts) that the legal entity uses for payouts and transfers ## Use cases ### Modern Marketplace Onboarding Onboard new sellers on a marketplace running on Adyen's Balance Platform by creating legal entities, attaching business lines that describe the products sold, and uploading verification documents. The /legalEntities, /businessLines, and /documents endpoints together model the full KYC and KYB picture; /checkVerificationErrors surfaces what is still missing before the entity can transact. Example prompt: POST /legalEntities with type Organization and registered business details, then POST /businessLines with the merchant category code and call /legalEntities/{id}/checkVerificationErrors to surface remaining gaps ### Hosted KYC for Account Holders Use the legal entity hosted onboarding endpoints to redirect account holders into an Adyen-hosted page where they complete verification fields and upload documents. Suitable for platforms that prefer not to build a bespoke KYC UI. The platform creates the legal entity, requests a hosted onboarding URL, and receives back a link that walks the legal entity contact through the missing requirements. Example prompt: Create the legal entity, then POST to the hosted onboarding endpoint to generate the URL and email it to the legal entity contact for completion ### Document Lifecycle and Re-verification Manage the full document lifecycle for a legal entity: upload an initial document via POST /documents, replace it with PATCH /documents/{id} when it expires, and delete it once verification is no longer required. The transfer instruments resource lets you attach and update bank accounts on the same legal entity, and /checkVerificationErrors highlights which documents remain outstanding at any time. Example prompt: POST /documents with type bankStatement and base64 content for legal entity LEM-0421, then call /legalEntities/LEM-0421/checkVerificationErrors to confirm the bank verification gap is cleared ### AI Agent Compliance Operations Compliance agents create and update legal entities through Jentic without raw access to the Adyen API key. The agent searches for 'create a legal entity on Adyen' via Jentic, receives the /legalEntities schema with the required type and entity-specific fields, and executes the call. Subsequent document uploads and verification error checks follow the same search-load-execute pattern with vaulted credentials. Example prompt: Search Jentic for 'check Adyen legal entity verification errors', load the schema, and POST /legalEntities/{id}/checkVerificationErrors for the legal entity referenced in the compliance ticket ## Key endpoints | Method | Path | Description | | --- | --- | --- | | POST | /legalEntities | Create a legal entity | | GET | /legalEntities/{id} | Get a legal entity | | PATCH | /legalEntities/{id} | Update a legal entity | | POST | /businessLines | Create a business line | | POST | /documents | Upload a verification document | | POST | /legalEntities/{id}/checkVerificationErrors | Check verification errors on a legal entity | | POST | /transferInstruments | Create a transfer instrument such as a bank account | | GET | /legalEntities/{id}/businessLines | List business lines for a legal entity | ## Key resources - **Legal Entities** — Individuals, organisations, sole proprietorships, and trusts subject to KYC and KYB verification - **Business Lines** — Descriptions of products or services a legal entity offers, used for risk classification - **Documents** — Verification documents uploaded against a legal entity (passport, bank statement, registration) - **Transfer Instruments** — Bank accounts attached to legal entities for payouts and transfers - **Terms of Service Acceptances** — Records of legal entity acceptance of Adyen and partner terms of service - **PCI Questionnaires** — PCI compliance questionnaires linked to legal entities where required ## Why Jentic - **Setup:** Wiring the Adyen Legal Entity Management API by hand means handling its X-API-Key or basic auth, targeting the KYC host, and tracking verification errors across a large surface. Through Jentic you install once, import the Legal Entity Management API from the API Directory, store the key once, and your agent calls it. - **Permission scoping:** Legal Entity Management puts the legal entity id in the URL path (/legalEntities/{id}), so a rule can pin your agent to one legal entity: it can read, patch, and check verification errors for that entity and nothing else. You choose the operations it may call, so creating transfer instruments or documents stays out unless you add them. - **Credential handling:** Your Adyen X-API-Key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context. - **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'create a legal entity on adyen' or 'check verification errors', and Jentic returns the matching Legal Entity Management operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs. ## Related APIs - **Adyen Management API** — Configures the balance platform-level merchant settings the legal entities sit under - **Adyen Checkout API** — Authorises payments for merchants verified through the Legal Entity API - **Onfido API** — Standalone identity verification provider with broad document and biometric coverage - **Sumsub API** — KYC and KYB verification platform with hosted flows and SDK integration ## FAQ ### What authentication does the Adyen Legal Entity Management API use? The Legal Entity Management API accepts an API key in the X-API-Key header or HTTP Basic authentication with web service user credentials. Generate the key from your Customer Area or Balance Platform Customer Area for Issuing integrations. Through Jentic, your X-API-Key is held encrypted in your Jentic One instance and agents authenticate with scoped tokens, keeping the raw key out of agent context. ### Can I support both individuals and organisations through this API? Yes. POST /legalEntities accepts a type field with values individual, organization, soleProprietorship, or trust, and the request body shape changes accordingly. Individuals require personal details such as name and date of birth; organisations require registered name, registration number, and legal address. Verification requirements vary by type and jurisdiction. ### What are the rate limits for the Legal Entity Management API? Adyen applies per-merchant rate limits in the tens of requests per second for legal entity operations on production, lower in test. Document uploads have lower limits because of payload size. Excess requests return HTTP 429; back off and retry, and contact your Adyen account manager if you need a sustained higher ceiling. ### How do I check verification errors through Jentic? Search Jentic for 'check Adyen legal entity verification errors' to find the POST /legalEntities/{id}/checkVerificationErrors operation. Pass the legal entity id in the path and Jentic returns the schema and executes the call with vaulted credentials. The response highlights which fields or documents still need attention. Run it through Jentic One, the self-hosted execution layer. ### What document types can I upload for verification? POST /documents accepts a documentType field with values such as passport, driversLicense, identityCard, bankStatement, registrationDocument, and proofOfResidence. Documents are uploaded as base64-encoded content with metadata describing the legal entity and document subject. The exact accepted set varies by entity type and jurisdiction; the spec enumerates the supported values. ### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the Adyen Legal Entity Management API? Yes. Jentic One is self-hosted by you, so your own rules decide which operations and credentials the agent may use. Because the legal entity id sits in the URL path (/legalEntities/{id}), you can pin an agent to a single legal entity and allow only read, PATCH, and POST /legalEntities/{id}/checkVerificationErrors on it. Write operations such as POST /documents or POST /transferInstruments stay off unless you explicitly add them, and your encrypted X-API-Key is injected at execution time rather than exposed to the agent.