Locked out of Meta Business Suite? How to get admin access back

Part of our Meta ads help centre. This guide is for owners whose Page, Instagram or ad account is controlled by an ex-employee, an old agency or nobody at all.

How the pieces connect

Most lockouts happen because people mix up these layers. Here's how they fit together:

• Your personal Facebook profile is the login. Access is always given to a person, never to an email address on its own.
  • Business portfolio (Meta still calls it Business Manager in some older help pages) is the container that owns your business assets and lists who can use them.
    • Assets: Facebook Page, Instagram account, ad account, pixel or dataset, catalogue. Each asset can belong to only one portfolio.
    • People: your staff, each with full access or partial access to the portfolio and to individual assets.
    • Partners: other businesses, such as your agency, who get access through their own portfolio.

Meta's newer help pages call the top permission level full access. Some screens and older articles still say full control. They mean the same thing: someone who can add and remove people, partners and assets.

The key question is always: which portfolio owns the asset, and who has full access to that portfolio?

Check these first: who has access now

1. Log in to business.facebook.com with your personal profile. Open the drop-down below Home in the top left to see every portfolio you belong to.
2. In the right portfolio, open Settings, then People. If you can't see People, you don't have full access.
3. Open Settings, then Pages and your ad accounts. Select each one to see the people and partners assigned to it.
4. If your Page isn't in any portfolio you can see, it is either a standalone Page or it sits in someone else's portfolio. Ask past staff and agencies to check theirs.
5. If you suspect a hack rather than a departed admin, stop here and follow Facebook ad account disabled or hacked.

Cause and fix table

What you see	What it means	How to fix it	How long it takes
You're in the portfolio but can't see People or Partners	You have partial access	Ask a person with full access to upgrade you	Minutes, once they act
Page sits in an old agency's portfolio	The agency owns or controls the asset	Ask them to move it to your portfolio or share it; otherwise request access	Days to weeks
The only full-access person was an ex-employee	Nobody reachable can add you	Contact them first, then submit a full-control request to Meta	Weeks; Meta gives no fixed time
Page isn't in any portfolio and the admin left	Access is managed on the Page itself	Ask the remaining admin, or use Meta's Page recovery options	Varies
Strangers listed as admins, emails about changes you didn't make	Likely compromise	Secure your profile and report it to Meta	Varies

Getting access back when the admin has left

Step 1: ask the person who has it

Meta's first recommendation is to contact whoever has full access and ask them to add you. A polite email to an ex-staff member or old agency, with your business name and the asset names, is the fastest route when it works. Ask them to add you with full access, then you remove them.

Step 2: request access to the Page from your own portfolio

If you have your own portfolio, you can request access to a Page that sits elsewhere. Meta's steps:

1. In Meta Business Suite, go to Settings.
2. Below Accounts, select Pages.
3. Click the + Add drop-down and choose Request shared access to a Facebook Page.
4. Enter the Page name or URL, choose partial access or full control, and click Confirm.

The request goes to whoever has full access to the Page or its owning portfolio. Your portfolio must already have a primary Page. Meta won't tell you who the owner is for privacy reasons, so you may need to chase it yourself.

Step 3: ask Meta for full control of your portfolio

If you own the business and nobody with full access can be reached, Meta has a request process. Meta lists situations that may qualify, including:

• The person with full control is a former employee or contractor with no ownership rights.
• The business changed owners and lost access.
• Nobody has full control of the portfolio.

Meta asks for three documents: identification for the person requesting, a document proving you own the business, and a signed attestation letter. Files must be unaltered and in a non-editable format such as PDF, JPEG or PNG. Meta doesn't publish a turnaround time.

Tip

According to Meta's Page access help, a Page with nobody holding full control can be deactivated and scheduled for deletion. Don't let the last admin leave without handing over.

Adding an agency as a partner

Your agency should work in your assets from its own portfolio. That way you can remove them in one click, and you never hand over your personal login. You need full access to your portfolio and the agency's business portfolio ID.

1. In Meta Business Suite, go to Settings.
2. In the menu on the left, under Users, click Partners.
3. Click Add, then Give a partner access to your assets.
4. Enter the agency's business portfolio ID and click Next.
5. Choose the Page, ad account and dataset to share, and pick partial access for the tasks they need.
6. Click Assign assets. Another full-access person in your portfolio may need to approve it.

A partner given full control of an asset can manage it but can't share it with another business. Only the owner can do that, which is why your business should own the asset.

Tidy access hygiene

• Keep at least two trusted people, such as the owner and a director, with full access.
• Turn on two-factor authentication for the portfolio, as Meta recommends.
• Give staff the lowest access that lets them do their job. Basic access is Meta's default.
• Use temporary access for contractors. Meta lets you set it from 3 to 75 days, after which it removes them automatically.
• Remove people on their last day, and review the People and Partners lists each quarter.

The same ownership principle applies to your website and domain: see getting website access back from a previous developer.

Australian detail

Meta's ownership document list is international. Australian documents that appear to fit its categories include an ASIC company registration certificate, a business name or ABN record, a utility bill or a bank statement in the business name. Meta decides what it accepts. Keep these ready as PDFs before you start. Meta processes these requests itself; there is no Australian phone line that can override the outcome. This is general information, not legal advice.

When to get help

If the portfolio map is a tangle of old agencies and personal accounts, a specialist audits who owns each asset, prepares the request to Meta and rebuilds access so your business owns everything. Our clients always own their ad accounts.

Talk to our Meta ads team

About this guide

Written by Amann Jhamb, Director of AR Digital Solutions, 17 years in web design, SEO and paid ads. Last checked: 3 November 2026 against Meta Business Help Centre: Submit a request to get full control of a business portfolio. Change note: first published 3 November 2026. Part of our Meta ads help centre.