Account access

Our only Meta business portfolio admin left the company. How do we get full control back?

By The Tofu team ·

Ask Meta for it: start a chat in Business Support Home and choose "Business Manager admin dispute." Meta says you may be eligible when the person with full control is a former employee or contractor with no ownership rights, or when no one has full control. You upload three files: the requester's ID, proof your company owns the business and a signed attestation letter. If Meta approves, you get full control, but it removes no one, so remove the former admin yourself. If you can still reach them, ask them to hand over access first, as Meta suggests.

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As of November 2026.

Hacked rather than abandoned? See what to do when your Meta business portfolio is hacked.

Can someone who left our company still control our Facebook Page and ads?

Yes, until someone removes them. People join a business portfolio through their own Facebook profile or a managed Meta account, and Meta says removing a person is what "revokes their access to the business portfolio and any business assets." Leaving your company doesn't do it. Meta says people with full access "can manage everything in the business portfolio," and can also delete it. Full control of a Facebook Page lets someone remove anyone from it, including you, or delete the Page.

A note on names: some Meta articles now say "full access (formerly full control)," while the request article still says full control. They mean the same top level of access.

What is the Business Manager admin dispute, and who can file it?

It's Meta's process for asking for full control of a business portfolio your company can't manage. Meta lists five cases where you can ask:

  • The person with full control is a former employee or contractor with no ownership rights.
  • The business changed ownership and lost access to the portfolio.
  • No one has full control of the portfolio.
  • The person with full control has died, and you can provide a death certificate.
  • You have a court order showing you're the rightful owner of the business.

Meta asks you to be "logged in with the Facebook profile associated with the business portfolio," so file from the profile of a colleague who is already in it, if you have one. Meta doesn't say whether someone outside the portfolio can file. An agency can file for a client if its letter explains who it's filing for, its relationship to them and why.

What proof does Meta want?

Three files that can't be edited, such as PDF, JPEG or PNG:

  1. ID for the person asking: Meta prefers a passport, government ID or driver's license. The name must match the person who signs the letter.
  2. Proof your company owns the business: for example, articles of incorporation, a business license, a DBA filing, a tax certificate, a bank statement, a utility bill or a trademark document. Instead, you can give the amounts from 3 past invoices of an ad account in the portfolio, plus the last 4 digits and expiry date of the linked card, or a monthly credit line invoice for the ad account.
  3. A signed attestation letter (next question).

What goes in the attestation letter?

Put it on letterhead with your business name, physical address, phone number and logo or branding. Meta wants it to include:

  • A handwritten or certified digital signature that isn't covered up
  • Your relationship to the business and the portfolio
  • The business portfolio ID
  • Your Facebook profile URL, user ID and the email on that profile
  • Why you need full control, including whether the current admin's job or business relationship ended
  • The current admin's name and relationship to the business, or why you don't know them
  • A statement that the information is true and accurate

The portfolio ID is in Meta Business Suite under Settings > Business portfolio info, below the portfolio's name.

How do we submit the request?

Go to Business Support Home (facebook.com/business-support-home) and contact support. Start a chat, choose Business Manager admin dispute when asked for the issue, then upload the three files. Business Support Home also lists a chat with a "Meta AI support assistant," so you may start with Meta's AI.

How long does it take, and what happens if Meta says yes?

Meta publishes no timeline. If it approves, you get full control, and Meta says "existing people will not be removed from the business portfolio." Then:

  1. Remove the former admin: Settings > People > click their name > Remove. This revokes their access to the portfolio and its assets, such as Pages and ad accounts.
  2. See what changed: Settings > People > Export > Business history. The file logs actions such as people added, roles changed and partners given access, with who did each one.
  3. Review who's left: the People and permissions export lists each person's role, last active date and whether they're active.

What can we do while we wait?

Keep working: people with basic access can still work on the assets they're assigned. Avoid starting over in a new portfolio. Meta's developer docs call claiming an ad account "a one-time procedure," and the owning business can't remove it, so your ad accounts stay where they are (see can a Meta ad account be moved between business portfolios). Asking for shared access to your Page from a new portfolio doesn't help either: the request goes to someone with full control of the Page or of the portfolio it's in, which here may be only the person who left. Meta says it "cannot provide more information about who can accept your request."

What if our Facebook Page isn't in the business portfolio?

Then the dispute may not cover it. A Page outside a portfolio has its own access: Facebook access with full or partial control, task access and community manager access. Meta's request article only covers business portfolios and doesn't say whether it helps with a standalone Page, so name the Page in your chat. One rule matters: a Page "must have at least one person with Facebook access with full control." If no one has it, Meta says the Page "will be automatically deactivated and scheduled for deletion." So a departing admin should never remove themselves from a Page before someone else has full control.

The former admin is still reachable. What should they do?

Ask them to give a colleague full access, then remove them. In Meta Business Suite they go to Settings > People, click the colleague's name, click Manage under Business portfolio access, change the permissions and click Save. The colleague must already be in the portfolio; only someone with full control can add people. For a Page in the portfolio, they can also give Page access under Settings > Pages (below Profiles) > select the Page > Assign people.

How do we stop this from happening again?

  • Two or more admins: Meta's Security Center article says it's "helpful to have more than one person with full control of your business portfolio," so someone else can keep things running if one person leaves. Give full access to at least two people who work at your company, and give everyone else only the access they need, as Meta advises.
  • Temporary access for contractors: Meta gives temporary access only basic access, for 3 to 75 days, and revokes it automatically when it ends.
  • Offboarding: add the Meta portfolio, Pages and ad accounts to your checklist for anyone who leaves. Export People and permissions every few months to spot people who are gone.
  • Company logins: look at managed Meta accounts, which your organization creates for staff (Meta says they aren't available to every organization). See can my team use Meta Ads Manager without a personal Facebook account.

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