LinkedIn IDs confuse everyone because there are several of them, they look nothing alike, and LinkedIn hides the ones that matter for building. This guide sorts out the public handle, the internal member and company IDs, and the URN format, then shows how outreach tools resolve an ID from a plain profile URL.
What are the different LinkedIn IDs?
Four things get called an ID. The vanity handle is the readable slug in linkedin.com/in/your-name, which members can change up to five times in six months. The Person ID is the identifier LinkedIn's API returns for a member, an opaque string rather than a number. The company ID is the numeric identifier for an organization. And the URN is LinkedIn's wrapper format, written as urn:namespace:entityType:id, so urn:li:person:ID or urn:li:organization:ID.
How do you find each one?
The vanity handle is just the profile URL. A company ID is usually the number after /company/ in a page's admin URL. The Person ID is the hard one, and not for the reason most people assume: LinkedIn's Profile API is restricted to approved developers, another member's Person ID is only available through limited-access partner APIs, and critically, the ID you do receive is scoped to your own application. LinkedIn's documentation is explicit that sharing a Person ID across applications will not work and returns a 404. There is no portable member ID to look up.
How do outreach tools resolve IDs?
They start from what you have, a profile URL, and resolve the stable identifier through an authenticated session, the same way the logged-in member's own app does. This matters because outreach targets people by URL, not by an ID you could never look up in advance. On Swarmhit you paste profile URLs or a Sales Navigator search and the platform handles identity resolution behind its account safeguards, so you never touch a raw ID or an internal endpoint. The volatility of that resolution layer is covered in our Voyager API guide.
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FAQ
Where do I find my own LinkedIn ID?
Your vanity handle is in your profile URL and editable in settings, up to five times per six-month window. There is no single member ID to find: the IDs LinkedIn's API returns are scoped per application.
Can I get someone's LinkedIn member ID from the API?
Not portably. Another member's Person ID requires limited-access partner APIs, and any ID you obtain is valid only inside your own application. Outreach tools work from the profile URL and resolve identity through an authenticated session instead.
What is a LinkedIn URN?
LinkedIn's identifier format, written urn:namespace:entityType:id, as in urn:li:person:ID. Real person IDs are opaque strings rather than tidy integers.
Conclusion
The ID you can see is the one that changes; the IDs that are stable are the ones LinkedIn hides. For outreach it rarely matters: work from profile URLs and let infrastructure resolve identity behind its safety layer, instead of chasing internal IDs by hand.
