Time	Status	User Agent
Retrieving recent requests…

Time

Status

User Agent

Retrieving recent requests…

Overview

Use this method to change the applicant review status back to init (Documents requested).

This allows you to request missing documents without resetting previously uploaded documents or completed verification steps.

📘
Warning
This endpoint can temporarily reject the status change with a 409 Conflict error, a message asking to retry, and a header indicating the time after which you can retry — for example, Retry-After: 10 (seconds). This can happen when an applicant is set to pending and then almost immediately moved to a final status via the API (for example, approved right after pending) — the request may arrive while internal processing is still running.
To handle this:

Retry 409 responses instead of treating them as permanent failures. If the response includes a Retry-After header, wait for the interval it specifies; otherwise, fall back to a short fixed delay (for example, 10–15 seconds).

Avoid calling approve/reject/init immediately after moving an applicant to pending — wait for processing to finish, or be ready to retry on conflict.

🚧
Attention
This method is intended specifically for cases when applicants are in the onHold (Requires action) status and have at least one grey (Requested) step. It is designed to help you manage such cases more efficiently.
In all other situations—when the applicant has no grey (Requested) steps—the status you attempt to assign will be automatically overridden and replaced with the system-determined status.

📘
Note
The Reset applicant profile method also sets the applicant status to init but resets all completed verification steps, deactivates all uploaded documents, and removes all previously assigned statuses.

Request example

curl -X POST \
     'https://api.sumsub.com/resources/applicants/687fb2373fc85ad66b5d8744/-/init' \
     -H 'content-type: application/json' \
     -H 'X-App-Token: <your-app-token>' \
     -H 'X-App-Access-Sig: <your-signature>' \
     -H 'X-App-Access-Ts: <unix-timestamp>' \
     -d '{
            "note": "Example note",
            "tags": [
              "First tag",
              "Second tag"
            ],
            "reasons": {
              "manual": [
                "additionalDocumentRequest"
              ]
            }
          }'

Response explained

If the request is sent and processed successfully, you will receive a JSON response representing the applicant profile.

You can see the response structure, possible content with descriptions, and examples of response on the following page.

If the request fails, you will receive an HTTP response containing an error code and a message explaining the error. For example:

{
   "code": 400,
   "description": "Applicant must be on hold to move to init", 
   "correlationId": "0d3457fdac54803edf23c932ddd561a2"
}

Errors

Error code	Description
`400`	Applicant must have at least one grey step to move to `init`.
`400`	Applicant must be on hold to move to `init`.
`400`	When moving an applicant to Documents requested status at least one reason must be provided / At least one reason must be provided.
`400`	The request body must not be `null`.