Meta business portfolio: assets, people and partner access

This guide is built from Meta's Business Help Center: About business portfolios, Create a business portfolio, About business portfolio and business asset permissions, the pages on adding people, partners and assets linked below, and Meta's best practices for making a business portfolio more secure. It covers who owns what and who can do what. Proving the business is real is a separate step, covered in our guide to Meta business verification, and Page roles on Facebook itself are in our guide to a Facebook Page for your business.

What a business portfolio is

A business portfolio is the account in Meta Business Suite that owns your business's assets. Meta describes it as a way for organizations to bring their Facebook Pages, Instagram accounts, Threads accounts, ad accounts, catalogs and other business assets together and to manage them, and the people who access them, from one place. Some of Meta's help still uses the older name, Business Manager, for example in the support topic for ownership disputes.

A Page is one asset. The portfolio sits above it and decides who owns the Page, the ad account and the pixel, and who may work on them. Meta also says you need a business portfolio to use Meta Business Suite, enroll in monthly invoicing, run ads about social issues, elections or politics, verify your domain and create a publisher block list.

Creating one, and the limits

You create a portfolio at business.facebook.com: open the dropdown below Home, choose Create a business portfolio, and enter a name. Meta says the name should match the public name of your business or organization because it will be visible across Meta, and it cannot contain special characters. If you sign in with a Facebook profile, you also give your name and a business email, which Meta asks you to confirm.

Three limits are worth knowing before you start:

• You can personally create up to 2 business portfolios. There is no limit on the number of portfolios you can belong to.
• Business assets can only belong to 1 business portfolio. Other portfolios can be given access, but only one owns it.
• A new portfolio may not have every advertising feature at once. Meta says it grants some features only when an advertiser has met certain requirements, and lists them in Business Support Home.

Whoever creates the portfolio gets full access to it. Your contact details are visible to the people you add.

Full access and partial access

Meta uses two levels, and they apply both to the portfolio and to each asset in it. Full access, which Meta used to call full control, is the highest level of access people can have. With partial access, People's permissions are limited to working only on the assets or tasks they've been assigned.

Permission	What Meta says it allows
Full access to the portfolio	Manage settings, people, tools and assets; claim or remove assets and people; manage partner access; see every asset; delete the portfolio
Basic (partial, formerly "employee")	Work only on assigned assets; see who has full access. The default for anyone you add
Apps and integrations (partial, formerly "developer")	Set up the Conversions API, monitor events, edit apps, create access tokens
Finance access (an extra option)	View or manage transactions, invoices, account spend and payment methods
Temporary access	Basic access only, for 3 to 75 days, then removed automatically
Full access to one asset	All permissions for that asset, including deleting it, and managing who is assigned to it
Partial access to one asset	Specific tasks, such as creating content, managing ads and responding to messages

Two rules follow from this. Someone can have full access to an asset without full access to the portfolio. And when the two disagree, the portfolio wins: Meta's page on adding people says Business portfolio permissions override all others.

Adding and removing people

Meta's page Add people to a business portfolio and assign a business asset gives the steps. You need full access to the portfolio.

1. Open Settings in Meta Business Suite and click People. If you cannot see People, you probably don't have full access.
2. Click Invite people and enter the person's email address. It must match the email on their Facebook account. If your organization uses managed Meta accounts, you search for the account instead.
3. Choose their portfolio permissions, then the assets and tasks they get, and click Invite.

The person must accept the invitation, and Meta notes that it can take a few days before all features become available to them. Their name, work email and assigned assets become visible to people with full access. If another person with full access has to approve the invitation, it waits in Requests in Settings.

To remove someone, Meta's page Remove people from your business portfolio says to click their name in People and choose Remove. Removing a person revokes their access to the business portfolio and any business assets they could reach. Removing a partner business is a different action, covered below.

Adding Pages and ad accounts

Adding a Page makes your business the owner. Meta's page on adding a Facebook Page to your business portfolio says so directly: When you add a Page to your business portfolio, your business owns that Page. The Page must not already be owned by another person or business, and people who had access to the Page before can still manage it afterwards, so check its access list once it is in.

For ad accounts, Meta's page on adding an ad account to your business portfolio gives three routes, and the choice is hard to undo:

• Create a new ad account. It will permanently be a part of that portfolio and can't be deleted or transferred. Meta adds that new portfolios can create only one ad account at first, rising to 3 once a campaign delivers and a payment is made.
• Claim an existing ad account. This may permanently move it into the portfolio. You can't claim one that is already in another portfolio. If another person owns it, they must approve.
• Request to share an ad account. Meta's own example is an agency working on a client's ad account: The account will remain in their portfolio, but access will be shared with your portfolio.

The same choice exists for Pages. An agency that only needs to work on a client's Page should use Request shared access to a Facebook Page. Meta's page on requesting access to a Page explains: You aren't taking ownership of the Page, and the Page shows the client as its owner.

Working with an agency as a partner

A partner is another business portfolio, not a person. Meta lists two directions, both under Settings > Users > Partners > Add, and both need full access to your portfolio and the partner's business portfolio ID.

Giving a partner access to your assets

Following Meta's page Give a partner access to business assets, you choose Give a partner access to your assets, enter their portfolio ID, pick the assets and a level of access, then click Assign assets. Another person with full access may need to approve. You can give the partner full control of an asset or partial access, and Meta draws a clear line: a partner with full control can manage everything but they cannot share the business asset with another business – only the organization that owns the asset can share it with another business portfolio. With partial access, the partner can only pass on the tasks you gave them to its own staff.

Asking a partner to share their assets

The reverse request, on Meta's page Ask a partner to share assets with your business, is Ask a partner to assign you their assets. You enter the partner's email and portfolio ID and the asset types and permissions you want. The partner can approve, deny or change what is shared, and you can follow or cancel the request in the Partners tab.

Removing a partner

When an agency relationship ends, Meta's page Remove partners from your business portfolio says to open Partners, click Options, then Remove from business portfolio and Remove partner. Because the assets stayed in your portfolio, removing the partner leaves your Pages, ad accounts and their history with you.

System users for software

Some tools, such as a CRM, a feed tool or a server sending Conversions API events, need their own login. Meta's page About system users says System users represent servers or software that make API calls to assets managed by a business portfolio. There are admin system users and regular system users, and Meta advises creating one system user for each type of access you need so that a leaked token has limited scope. According to Add system users to your business portfolio, you need a Facebook app associated with the portfolio, you add the system user under Users > System users, assign assets and generate a token, and you can see the token only once. Our Meta Pixel and Conversions API guide covers what those events are for.

If nobody in the business has full access

This is the common mess: a former employee or freelancer set up the portfolio and nobody else has full access. Meta first asks you to contact that person. If that fails, its page Submit a request to get full control of a business portfolio lists when you may file a claim, including when the person with full control is a former employee or contractor with no ownership rights, the business changed ownership, or no one has full control.

You send three documents: identification of the person requesting access, a document that proves you own the business (Meta lists examples such as articles of incorporation, a business license, a tax certificate or a utility bill), and a signed attestation letter on letterhead that includes the business portfolio ID. The files must be unaltered PDF, JPEG or PNG. You submit them through Business Support Home by starting a chat and choosing Business Manager admin dispute. If Meta approves, you get full control, but existing people will not be removed from the business portfolio, so review the People list straight away.

Meta's security recommendations

Meta's security best practices page, and the Security Center in Business Suite, recommend:

• Two people with full access. It is recommended (but not required) that 2 active people have full control, which also adds a second approval to sensitive actions.
• Not too many. Limit full control to those who need it, ideally 10 or fewer people.
• Remove inactive people. Meta suggests removing anyone who hasn't logged in within the past 90 days.
• Work email addresses. Remove users whose email addresses aren't related to your business, because public email domains are a common route for bad actors.
• Passkeys or two-factor authentication for everyone, with backup methods such as recovery codes.
• Audit and monitor. People with full access can export a file of everyone's permissions from the People tab and download the portfolio's business history to look for changes nobody made on purpose.

Deleting a portfolio

Meta's page on deleting a business portfolio says this action can't be reversed. Deletion removes your access to other businesses' assets and any access you shared. Pages go back to another portfolio or to the personal profile of the Page owner, and people keep their access to each Page and ad account through their own profiles. The portfolio is pending deletion for 24 hours, then can't be reopened. Not every portfolio is eligible, and connected WhatsApp business profiles must be removed first.

How we would set it up

This section is our suggestion, based on Meta's rules above, not something Meta prescribes.

• The business creates its own portfolio, in its own name, and two people from the business hold full access. An agency should never be the only one with full access.
• The Page, Instagram account, ad account and pixel live in the business's portfolio. An agency gets them as a partner, with partial access where the work allows it, rather than creating them in its own portfolio. That is the same principle as in our website ownership checklist: your business owns, others are added.
• Staff get basic access to only the assets they work on. Short projects get temporary access.
• Billing goes to people with finance access, not to everyone with full access.
• When someone leaves, remove them that day. When an agency leaves, remove the partner and check the People list and the business history.

Frequently asked questions

Does adding a Page to my portfolio remove other people's access?

No. Meta says people who had access to the Page before it was added can still access and manage it, so review the Page's access list afterwards.

How many business portfolios can I create?

Meta says you can personally create up to 2, and there is no limit on how many portfolios you can belong to.

Can an asset be in two portfolios?

No. Meta says business assets can only belong to 1 business portfolio. Other portfolios can be given access as partners, but only one owns the asset.

Should my agency add my ad account to its portfolio?

Usually not. Creating or claiming an ad account in a portfolio can be permanent. Meta's own agency example is to keep the ad account in the client's portfolio and share access with the agency.

What if the only person with full control has left?

Ask them to give you full access first. If that is not possible, Meta accepts a request through Business Support Home with ID, proof of ownership and a signed attestation letter.

For the next steps with Meta, see our Meta ads basics guide, our guide to Meta business verification, and the matching guide for Google: Google Ads access levels.