Check if a Lichess username is taken

What we check on Lichess

Standard tier - checked on every full lookup

Lichess is checked from a username. The response says whether that handle exists on Lichess - registered: true or registered: false - with the moment that was established in checkedAt. An email address on its own cannot reach Lichess; if you only have an email, its local part is tried as a handle and any hit is labelled as derived, never counted as a confirmed match.

Lichess is checked on every full lookup (?wait=true or streaming), alongside every other platform. It is not in the sub-second instant subset, which is reserved for the highest-value platforms for each input type.

If Lichess blocks the check, times out, or answers ambiguously, it is omitted from results[] entirely rather than returned as registered: false. Absence from the response means "unconfirmed", never "no account".

Who checks Lichess accounts

Gaming accounts are checked by game studios, gaming marketplaces and payment providers fighting account resale, chargebacks and promotion abuse. Gaming handles tend to be old, personal and reused across platforms, so a buyer or player with an established gaming footprint is a very different risk from a batch of new addresses.

More on this: Fake account detection.

Inputs Lichess accepts

• Username: send the handle as query. Lichess is checked for that exact handle - useful when a person reuses the same name across platforms.

One request

curl -X POST "https://api.digifootprint.dev/v2/lookup?wait=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer dfp_your_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "someuser"}'

What a Lichess result looks like

{
  "platform": "lichess",
  "registered": true,
  "checkedAt": "2026-10-15T09:53:21.616Z",
  "identity": "username"
}

The full response shape - breaches, web mentions, matches versus socialMatches, and what method means - is in running a lookup.

Related platforms

Every one of these is checked in the same request as Lichess.

Lichess lookup FAQ

Can I check a phone number on Lichess?

Not directly. Lichess can be reached from username. Phone numbers are checked on the messaging and social apps that sign people up by phone.

How fast is a Lichess check?

Lichess is checked on a full lookup, which streams results as they land - the first matches arrive in around 60 milliseconds and the whole set typically completes in a few seconds.

What happens if Lichess blocks the check?

Lichess is left out of the response. We never report a platform we could not confirm as "not registered" - a missing platform means unconfirmed, not absent.

Does the API return the Lichess account details?

No. You get whether an account exists for the input you sent, and when that was established. No profile contents, photos, followers or private data are collected or returned.