# Step 1 - Create a legal entity ID

A legal entity ID uniquely identifies the organization (such as a property management company or hotel chain) that owns or manages a property. You must provide this ID when creating a property. Use the Contracting API to create a legal entity ID.

## Creating a legal entity ID


```http
POST
https://supply-xml.booking.com/contracts-api/partners/invite
```

Use the `POST /partners/invite` endpoint to send the legal details of a new Accommodation Partner. If the request is successful, the endpoint creates a legal entity ID.

A successful request also triggers an email to the new Accommodation Partner with a link to the Booking.com contracting tool. The Accommodation Partner must sign the contract before you can set a property as open and bookable.

### Specify unique email address for test partners

To create a test Accommodation Partner, keep the following in mind:

- Each legal entity ID (LEID) is associated with a unique legal contact email in the Booking.com system. You cannot use the same email address to create multiple LEIDs. Therefore, for testing purposes you must use a different email address.


TIP: You could attach a suffix to your legal contact email address. For example: johndoe+test01@gmail.com, with +test01 being the suffix. Doing so results in any communication still being sent to the same email address, but the system recognises it as different. You should add a unique suffix each time you create a new test partner, but remember to add a + sign before the suffix.

- Add the `is_test` parameter and set it to 1 to create a test Accommodation Partner.


All parameters are required unless otherwise noted.

| Parameter | Description |
|  --- | --- |
| `country` | Specifies the country of the Accommodation Partner company. |
| `city` | Specifies the city of the Accommodation Partner company. |
| `zipcode` | Specifies the zipcode of the Accommodation Partner company. |
| `street` | Specifies the street of the Accommodation Partner company. |
| `legal_contact_email` | Specifies the Accommodation Partner's legal contact email. The system sees this email as the unique identifier for the Accommodation Partner. See [specifying unique email address for test partners](#specify-unique-email-address-for-test-partners). |
| `contract_countries` | Contains the countries in which the Accommodation Partner has properties. To retrieve a list of the available country codes, see [retrieving country codes](/connectivity/docs/b_xml-countries). You can include multiple country codes. |
| `legal_contact_name` | Specifies the Accommodation Partner's legal contact name. |
| `legal_contact_phone_number` | [Optional] Specifies the Accommodation Partner's legal contact phone number. Follows ITU E.164. |
| `legal_name` | [Optional] Specifies the legal name of the Accommodation Partner company. |
| `preferred_language` | Specifies the preferred language in which the Accommodation Partner wants to communicate. For the language codes, see [Booking.com Language Code](/connectivity/docs/codes-bcl) |
| `company_name` | Specifies the commercial name of the Accommodation Partner company. |
| `website` | [Optional] Specifies the website of the Accommodation Partner company. |
| `is_test` | [Optional] Indicates whether the legal entity ID (for an Accommodation Partner) you want to create is for testing purposes. Defaults to `0` (Production). |


### Sample request

This request creates a test Accommodation Partner. It's a test Partner because of the attribute `is_test="1"`. For a real Partner, you must use the default value `0` instead of `1`.


```json
{
    "city": "Amsterdam",
    "company_name": "Parker hotels",
    "country": "nl",
    "legal_contact_email": "peter.parker+test01@hotel.com",
    "contract_countries": [
        "fr", "nl"
      ],
    "legal_contact_name": "Swan Park",
    "legal_contact_phone_number": "+1234567890",
    "legal_name": "Park hotels BV",
    "preferred_language": "NL",
    "street": "Streetstreet",
    "total_number_of_properties": 2,
    "zipcode": "1000AB",
    "website": "https://www.besthotel.com",
    "is_test": 1
   }
```

### Sample response

A successful response looks as follows:


```json
{
    "warnings": [],
    "errors": [],
    "data": {
        "legal_entity_id": 14379109
    },
    "meta": {
        "ruid": "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
    }
}
```