WhatsApp calls no longer require a WhatsApp account to join.
The Meta-owned app rolled out guest calling today, letting hosts send a link that anyone can use to join a voice or video call from a browser, no app or sign-up required. Calls are end-to-end encrypted, free, and support up to 32 participants with no time limit. Guests sit in a waiting room until the host admits them, and they're walled off from the rest of the chat: no visible phone numbers, no messaging, no adding other guests. Hosts can still boot anyone mid-call, and guests get a reduced toolkit: screen sharing, a raised hand, and two emoji reactions.
This closes a gap that's dogged WhatsApp for years: everyone else on the call needed the app, which made it a poor fit for one-off meetings with vendors, clients, or relatives who'd never installed it. Zoom and Google Meet already let outsiders join via browser link, so WhatsApp isn't inventing anything here. It's catching up while leaning on its actual differentiator: end-to-end encryption by default.
Apple solved this same problem for FaceTime back in iOS 15, released in 2021, and it took WhatsApp five more years to offer the same courtesy to non-users.