WhatsApp error 133000: Incomplete Deregistration

Code 133000 belongs to the registration family. It means a previous call to deregister the business phone number did not complete, and the number is now stuck between registered and deregistered. Because the platform cannot treat it as cleanly in either state, a subsequent register call is refused with 133000 until the deregistration is finished.

This typically occurs during migrations, for example moving a number from the WhatsApp Business app or the On-Premises API to the Cloud API, or when an automated script issued a deregister call that timed out. The number may still appear in WhatsApp Manager, and it may even still receive webhooks, which adds to the confusion.

Meta's remedy is to deregister again before registering. The number itself is fine, your token is fine, and no messaging change is required; it is purely a state repair.

Like the rest of the 133xxx family, it is synchronous and tied to the registration endpoints rather than messaging. The deregister-then-register repair sequence, and the errors each step can raise, are walked through in the registration troubleshooting guide; mind the attempt ceilings in the limits reference while repairing.

Make registration and deregistration sequential, idempotent, and owned by a single process, with explicit success checks between steps. Keep a runbook for migrations that includes verifying state after each call, and avoid re-running scripts blindly, which burns registration attempts and can leave the number in this half state.