How to Run Political or Election Related Ads on Meta
Running digital advertising for political candidates, campaigns, committees, ballot measures, and advocacy organizations comes with requirements that don't apply to most commercial advertisers.
Platforms may require additional verification, disclosures, account setup, and review before your ads are eligible to run.
Because platform policies and election laws change frequently, campaigns should complete their advertising setup well before they expect to launch.
Where can you run political ads on social media?
Some restrict advertising, these digital advertising platforms currently allow some form of political advertising in the United States, including:
Meta (Facebook and Instagram)
Google (including Search, YouTube, and eligible Display inventory)
Snapchat
X
Reddit, subject to more limited eligibility and platform requirements
Availability and requirements vary by publisher, advertising platform, jurisdiction, and type of political advertiser.
What are Meta's requirements for political ads?
Meta classifies advertising about social issues, elections, or politics as a special category of advertising.
Before running these ads in the United States, advertisers should be prepared to complete three important setup steps:
Complete Meta's advertiser authorization process. This requires that the user has a Facebook account.
Create and receive approval for the appropriate Paid for by disclaimer.
Assign responsibility or ownership for the Facebook Page running the ads.
Meta's current overview of political-ad requirements is available through its Business Help Center.
When creating the campaign in Ads Manager, you must also identify the campaign as relating to social issues, elections or politics under Meta's Special Ad Categories.
Give yourself plenty of time to complete this process. Verification and review times can vary, and problems with identity, Page access, business information, or disclaimers can delay approval.
Step 1: Get authorized to run political ads
The first step is making sure the individuals responsible for running the advertising are authorized by Meta.
Meta may require you to confirm your identity using identification that meets its requirements for political advertisers. Accepted identification varies by country, and for political-ad authorization your ID generally must be issued by the country where you intend to run the ads.
Before beginning, make sure you have:
The appropriate Facebook access to the Page you will advertise from.
Access to the Meta account that will manage the advertising.
Appropriate account security and identity information.
A valid form of identification accepted by Meta for political-ad authorization.
Meta's current information about accepted identification is available in its Help Center.
Meta's interface and verification options can change, so follow the instructions presented in your account rather than assuming every advertiser will be asked to complete exactly the same verification steps.
Step 2: Create your Paid for by disclaimer
Once the appropriate advertiser authorization is in place, you will need a disclaimer identifying the organization or individual responsible for the advertising.
This is the Paid for by information that Meta displays with ads about social issues, elections, or politics.
Depending on the type of organization, Meta may offer different methods for verifying the organization behind the disclaimer. For U.S. advertisers, these can include tax-registered organizations, government organizations, and FEC-related verification options.
Make sure the organization information you submit matches the entity that is actually responsible for the advertising.
After the disclaimer is approved, make sure it is associated with the correct Facebook Page and advertising setup.
Meta's Page Transparency documentation explains that U.S. Pages running political advertising must have a confirmed Page owner or otherwise assign responsibility for the Page. You can review Meta's instructions for claiming responsibility for a Page here.
Step 3: Assign Page responsibility
Creating a disclaimer is not the same as simply having administrative access to a Facebook Page.
Meta requires Pages that run ads about social issues, elections or politics to designate who is responsible for the Page.
According to Meta, someone with the required level of Facebook access can manage this from:
Page Settings → Page Setup → Issue, Electoral or Political Ads → Assign responsibility
Make sure the organization associated with the approved disclaimer is correctly assigned before attempting to launch advertising.
Step 4: Create the campaign using the correct Special Ad Category
When you create your campaign in Meta Ads Manager, tell Meta that the campaign relates to social issues, elections or politics.
Do not attempt to avoid this classification. Meta reviews ad creative, targeting information, Pages, and landing pages as part of its advertising review process.
You can access Meta Ads Manager here.
Meta's disclaimer is different from your legal disclaimer requirements
Meta requires political and social-issue ads to display its Paid for by disclosure.
That does not necessarily replace disclaimers required under federal, state, or local campaign-finance law.
For example, federal political committees generally must include the appropriate disclaimer on paid internet public communications. The FEC has specific rules governing text, graphic, video, and audio internet advertising, as well as an adapted-disclaimer option for certain space-constrained formats.
Campaigns should review the applicable requirements for their race and jurisdiction before launching creative.
Political ads created or edited with AI
Meta also has specific disclosure requirements for certain political or social-issue advertisements that use AI or other digital techniques.
Disclosure may be required when realistic imagery, video, or audio has been digitally created or altered in ways such as:
Making a real person appear to say or do something they did not say or do.
Depicting a realistic-looking person who does not exist.
Depicting a realistic event that did not occur.
Altering footage of a real event in a materially relevant way.
Review the policy in more detail here in the Transparency Center.
Plan around Meta's election-week restrictions
Campaigns should also pay close attention to Meta's election-period restrictions.
For the 2026 U.S. election cycle, Meta says it will block new ads about politics, elections, and social issues during the final week of the campaign.
Ads that have already received at least one impression before the restriction begins may continue running during that period.
For campaigns, that makes advance planning especially important. Do not wait until the final days before an election to submit new creative you expect to rely on during the closing week.
Political ads are publicly archived
Political and social-issue advertising on Meta receives additional transparency treatment.
Meta places qualifying ads in its public Ad Library, where people can search and review the information including the advertiser responsible for the ad, spending ranges, and certain delivery information.
Meta says these political and social-issue ads are retained for seven years.
You can search the Meta Ad Library here.