Your Google Business Profile is the listing that shows your hours, your phone number, your photos and your reviews when someone searches your business name or looks for your trade on Google Maps. If an agency set it up for you, it may be sitting in their Google account instead of yours. That’s easy to miss while things are going well. It matters the day you decide to switch.

This guide covers how to transfer ownership of your Google Business Profile from an agency to your own account: what Google’s owner and manager roles actually allow, how to check where you stand, the order that moves ownership without losing a single review, and what to do if the agency won’t cooperate. Every step comes from Google’s own Business Profile Help pages, listed at the end. Google renames menus from time to time, so if a label on your screen doesn’t match, the help pages are the final word.

Key takeaways
  • Your business’s Google account should be the primary owner. An agency belongs on the profile as a manager, which lets it do the work without controlling who has access.
  • Only the primary owner can hand over primary ownership, and newly added owners can’t remove users or change the primary owner during their first seven days. Plan on about a week.
  • Transfer the existing profile and never create a new one. Google’s guidelines prohibit duplicate profiles, and a transfer keeps your reviews.
  • If the agency won’t respond, Google’s ownership request gives the current owner three days to answer, after which you may be able to claim the profile yourself.

Owner, manager, primary owner: who can do what

Google Business Profile has three roles, and the differences between them decide who really controls your listing.

RoleHow manyEdit info, photos, posts and review repliesAdd or remove usersDelete the profile
Primary ownerOneYesYesYes
OwnerMore than one allowedYesYesYes
ManagerMore than one allowedYesNoNo

The primary owner is the account that matters most. Google won’t let a primary owner remove itself until it transfers primary ownership to someone else, and only the primary owner can make that transfer. Managers, which Google used to call site managers, can do nearly everything owners can, except add or remove users and delete the profile. That’s exactly the right shape for an agency: full ability to do the work, no ability to lock you out.

One more structure to know about. Agencies that manage many profiles often keep them in a business group. Anyone added as an owner or manager of the group can create, edit and delete every profile in it, current and future, and Google notes that the verification checkmark on a group shows that the group’s owner is verified. If your profile lives inside your agency’s group, the people on that group can still change it, so getting it out belongs on your handover list.

A profile owned by one employee’s personal Gmail has the same problem as one owned by an agency.

Check where you stand in two minutes

  1. Sign in to the Google account your business controls. Ideally that account uses your business email, has 2-step verification turned on and isn’t tied to one employee.
  2. Open your profile. Search your business name on Google while signed in, or go to business.google.com.
  3. Select More, then Business Profile settings, then People and access.
  4. Read the list. Note who is the primary owner, who else is an owner and who is a manager.

If your own account is the primary owner, you’re in good shape. Just confirm the agency is a manager rather than an owner. If the agency is the primary owner, keep reading. And if you can’t open the profile at all, your account isn’t on it, which is its own answer.

How to transfer ownership from your agency, in order

Do this before you give notice, while everyone is still cooperating. The order for the rest of the switch is in How to Fire Your Marketing Agency.

  1. Ask to be added as an owner. In writing, ask the agency to add your business’s Google account as an Owner: People and access, then Add, enter your email, choose Owner and send the invite. Accept it from your inbox.
  2. Wait out the first week. Google restricts new owners and managers for seven days. In that window they can’t delete or undelete the profile, remove other owners or managers, or make themselves or anyone else the primary owner. Plan the rest of the handover for after that week.
  3. Have the agency make you primary owner. Only the current primary owner can do this: People and access, select your name, select Edit next to Access, choose Primary owner and save. Google says transferring primary ownership keeps your business information, including reviews.
  4. Set the agency’s new role. If they’re staying on to manage the profile, change them to Manager. If they’re leaving, remove them: select their name in People and access, then Remove person. Only owners can remove other owners and managers.
  5. Get it out of their business group. If the profile sits in the agency’s group, ask them to move it out as part of the handover, then confirm it no longer shows up there.
  6. Write it down. Record who has access, at what level, and the date you checked. Look again once a year.

Don’t start over with a new profile

When an agency drags its feet, it’s tempting to create a fresh listing and move on. Don’t. Google’s guidelines are blunt: “Do not create more than one page for each location of your business, either in a single account or multiple accounts.” A second profile is a duplicate, and your reviews stay attached to the original. Get the existing profile back instead.

Your reviews were earned by your work. They should live in your account.
Ask for the handover before you give notice, not after.

If the agency won’t hand it over

Start with a short, polite written request that names the profile, the access you want and a reasonable deadline. If that goes nowhere, Google has a process for exactly this situation:

  1. Go to business.google.com/add and enter your business name and address.
  2. Choose your business from the list. When Google tells you someone else manages it, select Request access and complete the form.
  3. Google emails the current owner, who has three days to respond. You can follow the request from your confirmation email.
  4. If they don’t respond in three days, you may be able to claim the profile: open the confirmation email, select View request, then Verify, and follow the prompts. Google notes the claim option isn’t always available.

If the request is denied, Google tells you, and you can still suggest edits to the profile and may be able to appeal. Service-area businesses, the ones that serve customers at the customer’s location and don’t show an address, follow a different path: Google asks them to contact Business Profile support and choose “Transfer ownership of listing.” And if your profile is only one of several things you’re locked out of, Held Hostage by Your Web Guy covers the full recovery order.

The standard to ask for anywhere

Your business’s Google account as primary owner, your agency as a manager, and a written list of who has access. A good agency sets it up that way from day one and won’t mind you checking. If you hire help with your profile, ours included through our local SEO work, that’s the arrangement to expect.

The same question for your other Google accounts

The owner-versus-manager problem isn’t unique to Business Profile. Google Ads has its own version. Agencies run client ad accounts from a manager account, and Google’s rule is simple: if the agency’s manager account created your Ads account, it owns it by default. If it linked to an account you already had, it doesn’t own it unless you grant ownership. You can’t transfer that ownership yourself, but you can unlink the owning manager account and then grant ownership to a different one.

The practical fix is the same as above. Before you give notice, make sure your own Google account has Admin access on your Ads account, the level Google gives full control over users and linked accounts. Analytics and Search Console follow the same logic, and our five-minute owner’s audit walks through checking both. Your domain is the other piece owners forget, so here’s how to move it out of your web designer’s account.

Frequently asked questions

How do I remove the primary owner from my Google Business Profile?

You can’t remove a primary owner directly. The primary owner first has to transfer primary ownership to another owner, and only then can they be removed or remove themselves. If the primary owner won’t cooperate, use Google’s request ownership process at business.google.com/add.

How long does it take to transfer ownership of a Google Business Profile?

The settings change takes a minute, but plan on about a week. Newly added owners can’t remove other users or change the primary owner during their first seven days, so build that window into your handover.

Will I lose my reviews if I change who owns my Google Business Profile?

Not if you transfer the existing profile. Google says transferring primary ownership keeps your business information, including reviews. Creating a new profile is what puts them at risk, and it breaks Google’s rule against duplicate profiles.

Should my agency be an owner or a manager on my profile?

A manager, in most cases. Managers can edit business information, post updates, add photos and reply to reviews, but they can’t add or remove users or delete the profile. Keep the owner roles with people inside your business.

How do I claim my Google Business Profile if someone else owns it?

Go to business.google.com/add, find your business and select Request access. The current owner has three days to respond. If they don’t, you may be able to claim the profile from your confirmation email, though Google says that option isn’t always available.

Switching agencies? How to Fire Your Marketing Agency lays out the order for the whole move, and How to Transfer Domain Ownership From Your Web Designer covers the other account that matters most.

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