WhatsApp error 133016: Account register deregister rate limit exceeded

Code 133016 means the phone number has hit the registration and deregistration rate limit and is temporarily blocked from further attempts. Meta documents the limit as 10 requests per business phone number within a 72-hour moving window for the registration endpoint, and the same for the deregistration endpoint. Once the window is exhausted, any further register or deregister call returns 133016 until enough earlier attempts age out of the 72-hour window.

This is almost always self-inflicted by automation: a deployment pipeline that registers on every start, a retry loop around a failing PIN, or a migration script run repeatedly while debugging. The number is otherwise healthy; if it was already registered before the block, it can keep sending messages.

Because the window is 72 hours, this block can be painful. Nothing speeds it up except time, so the first action is to stop making it worse.

Register once, on purpose, as part of onboarding, and never on startup. Guard the register call with a state check so it is skipped when the number is already CONNECTED, keep a counter of attempts per number in your own system, and treat registration errors as needing a human rather than a retry. The 10-per-72-hour ceiling is listed with the other account and number limits; if you are mid-migration, the sequencing advice in the registration troubleshooting guide keeps you under it.