Changing the account owner

Fastpath: Admin Center > Account > Account owner

Account ownership for Support, Chat, Guide, and Talk are managed in Admin Center. This topic describes how to use Admin Center to change the account owner. The method you choose to change the account owner depends on whether the account owner is still available, or if they have left the organization. You must be the current account owner to make this change and you can only have one account owner at a time.

Important: When you change the owner of your account, integrations that were set up by the previous account owner may break. For more information, see Will there be any issues with changing the account owner?

This article includes the following topics:

• Transferring ownership
• Asking Zendesk to change the account owner
• Finding the account owner

Note: If you are using Legacy Chat versions, refer to (Legacy Chat) changing your Zendesk Chat account owner.

Transferring ownership

Only the current account owner can transfer ownership to another user. When the current owner is still available, transferring ownership is simple. By setting another administrator to the account owner role, the previous account owner loses access to all subscription-related pages such as Invoices and Payment.

To transfer ownership to a different user, the new owner must be a current administrator on the account. If you need to add the new account owner, see Adding agents and administrators.

To transfer ownership to a current administrator

1. In any product, click the Zendesk Products icon () in the top bar, then select Admin Center.
2. Click the Account icon () in the left sidebar, then click Account owner.
3. Select an administrator from the Account Owner drop-down list. You must have at least one other administrator to see the list.
4. Click Save.

To transfer ownership to a new administrator, when no agent seats are available

If you need to add the new owner to the account, and no agent seats are available, the current owner can edit their own user profile to make the transfer.

1. In Zendesk Support, click the current owner's profile icon in the upper-right corner of the page header, then select View profile page.
2. In the profile's email field, click add contact and enter the new owner's email address. The current owner will receive an email that this new address has been added.
3. After the current owner receives the email, return to the current owner's profile.
4. Click the dropdown icon on the new email address, and select Make primary contact.
5. Delete the old owner's email address from the account. The account and profile now belong to the new owner. Reset the account's password and update the other account information as needed.
   Note: If you do not want to change the email address of the current owner profile, you can submit a request to Zendesk Customer Support and we can assist with adding a temporary agent seat to your account to create a new user profile.

Asking Zendesk to change the account owner

If the current owner is no longer available, Zendesk can make the change for you following a quick security measure. Send a written request in PDF format to Zendesk Customer Support including:

• The account subdomain
• The name and email address of the current account owner.
• The name and email address of the new account owner
• The billing address
• The last four digits of the credit card number on file
  Note: If you are billed by invoice, you do not need to include the last four digits of the credit card.

Include the above information in a letter on your company letterhead, signed by a manager at your organization. If your company doesn't have letterhead, please be sure to include your company's mailing address and phone number in the letter. Also, the request needs to come from an email address in the company's domain.

Finding the account owner

If you don't know the owner for your account, you can view the roles assigned to your users to find out.

To find the account owner

1. In Zendesk Support, click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Manage > People.
2. Select agents.

   Search through the list of agents. The agent who is the account owner will have an Administrator (Owner) role.