How to access, share and transfer your Google Business Profile

1. How to get into your profile, and who else can
2. Why profile access goes wrong, even when everyone means well
3. What Google's rules and our research show
4. How to set up access so the business never loses its profile
5. Questions owners ask
6. How we got these numbers
7. Sources
8. See it on your own website

How to get into your profile, and who else can

Most owners ask about access in a hurry. A new office manager needs to post photos, an agency wants in, the person who set up the profile has left, or the business was sold. Each comes down to one question: which Google Accounts are attached to your profile, and what each may do.

How to sign in to your Business Profile

There is no separate password for a Business Profile. You manage it from a Google Account that has been given access. Google says you must sign in to the Google Account associated with the profile to find it ¹. Then do one of these:

• On Google Search, search for your business name and city, or search "my business" ¹.
• On Google Maps, search for your business name and city ¹.
• In the Google Maps app, tap Business at the bottom right ¹.

If your profile shows up without editing tools, you're signed in to the wrong account. Try every Google Account the business has used. If none works, someone else holds the profile, and step 6 below explains how to get it back.

The three roles: primary owner, owner and manager

Google gives each person on a profile one of three roles ²:

• The primary owner. A profile can have several owners but only one primary owner ². Only the primary owner can hand that role to someone else ³.
• Owners. An owner has full control: adding and removing people, editing the business information and even deleting the profile ².
• Managers. A manager can do almost everything an owner can. The exceptions are adding or removing people and removing the profile ².

"Manager" does not mean read-only. Google's role table shows that managers can edit the business name, phone number, website, hours and address, reply to reviews, and even close a location ². Give manager access only to people you trust with your public record.

How to add a user or manager to your profile

Google's tip is that each person should use their own Google Account, so nobody has to share a password ². To invite someone, Google lists these steps ²:

1. Go to your Business Profile.
2. Select More, then Business Profile settings, then People and access.
3. At the top left, select Add.
4. Enter the person's email address. This is the address of their Google Account.
5. Under Access, choose Owner or Manager.
6. Select Invite.

The person becomes a user as soon as they accept, and you get an email when they do. The People and access page lists every current user and every pending invite, and you can cancel an invite there ². Only owners can change someone's role or remove them ².

Why profile access goes wrong, even when everyone means well

The profile belongs to accounts, not to the business

Google doesn't see your business as a company that logs in. It sees the Google Accounts attached to the profile. If the only owner is a former employee's personal Gmail, or an account your web agency created, every change depends on that person.

Google's own rules for agencies point the same way. All clients must keep ownership or co-ownership of their profile at all times ⁴. Google tells agencies to make the business owner the owner and themselves the manager, and to ask existing clients to invite them as managers, not owners ⁴.

Changing the email means changing who has access

Google's help pages describe adding people, changing roles, transferring primary ownership and removing people ². Not one of them describes changing the email on the profile itself. To move a profile to a new address, invite that address, make it the primary owner, then remove the old one. The primary owner can't leave until they have handed that role on ².

New owners have to wait seven days

For their first 7 days, a new owner or manager can't delete the profile, remove other owners or managers, or transfer primary ownership ². If you add a new owner and the old one leaves the same day, the new owner may be unable to finish the handoff. Leave at least a week between adding the new person and removing the old one.

Selling, buying or renaming the business

When a business changes hands, Google says to transfer primary ownership of the existing profile to the new owner. That keeps all the business information, including reviews ³. Starting a new profile instead creates a duplicate. Google says a profile it considers a duplicate won't show on Search or Maps ⁵. The same applies when you move: Google says to update the address on the existing profile, not create a new one ⁵.

Whoever controls the phone number controls the calls

Some marketing companies put a call-tracking number on a client's profile so they can count calls. Google's guidelines say the phone number must be under the direct control of the business ⁶. They also rule out numbers that redirect callers to numbers other than the actual business's ⁶. If an agency's number is on your profile, ask who owns it and what happens to it if you part ways.

Google and the public can change your profile too

Google gathers information from user reports and licensed content. If those sources say your details are wrong or outdated, Google may update your profile, and the updates show on Maps, Search and other Google services ⁷. Your own edits are reviewed too, usually within minutes but sometimes for up to 30 days ⁸. Someone on your side needs access, and needs to look.

What Google's rules and our research show

What Google requires of agencies that manage your profile

Google publishes separate policies for agencies, marketing firms and booking providers that manage profiles for businesses they don't own ⁴. The parts that matter most for access:

• The business decides whether a partner gets owner access, manager access or no access at all ⁴.
• The agency must tell you about every change it makes to your profile, and may not change or switch off profile features without your consent ⁴.
• When you give notice, the agency has 7 business days to return exclusive control of your profile and remove its own permissions ⁴.
• An agency that charges a management fee must tell you in writing that the Business Profile itself costs nothing extra ⁴.
• Google lists keeping a profile hostage in exchange for money, and threatening that a client will lose its profile, as prohibited behavior ⁴.

Google's advice page for owners adds a plain reassurance. Only profile owners control who has access, and they can change it at any time ⁹. An agency can't remove your business from Google or get into your profile without your permission ⁹. Agencies that manage many clients use organization accounts, which can manage a profile only after the business grants permission ¹⁰.

Why your profile matters for AI answers

Google tells site owners who want to appear in its AI features to keep their Business Profile information up to date ¹¹. It also says a profile with inaccurate information might not show up for relevant local searches ¹².

Our own records show how much rides on it. Between September 2 and October 14, 2026, we asked ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Mode to recommend local contractors 47,209 times, for HVAC, plumbing, electrical and roofing jobs around Tampa Bay, Florida. These are observations of answers, not experiments. They show what the assistants did, not why.

• In 81% of Google AI Mode's 9,819 answers about a specific job, the answer showed business cards drawn from Google's listings: the name, rating, category, open or closed, and a town or address.
• In 74% of those answers, the links opened Google's own listing for a business. For AI Mode, your profile is often the page the customer sees.
• ChatGPT and Claude worked differently. In 98% of their 31,742 job answers, they linked to at least one contractor's own website.

Claude also sent some customers to Google listings to finish the job. Claude is the assistant that tells customers what it couldn't confirm. ChatGPT and Google AI Mode seldom do, so the figures here are Claude's. In 3,820 of Claude's 14,467 job answers (26%), it said it couldn't find or confirm a phone number or other way to reach a company. In 384 answers, it told the customer to get a number or contact details from a Google listing or Google Maps.

I couldn't verify phone numbers, so check each company's Google listing before you call.

We found these with word rules and checked a random sample by hand: 18 of 20 were sorted correctly.

What assistants said about conflicting or unmanaged listings

An unwatched profile can drift out of date, and assistants notice when sources disagree. In 239 of Claude's job answers, it said the sources it found gave different phone numbers for the same business, and asked the customer to check which one worked. The count for ChatGPT was 5, and for Google AI Mode 0. A hand check of these found 18 of 20 sorted correctly.

The two numbers conflict, so confirm which one works.

In 34 answers, Claude pointed out that a business's listing was unclaimed, meaning no owner had taken it over. Of those, 6 were Google listings and the rest were directories. Claude usually told the customer to treat that listing's hours, number or rating with caution. In 182 answers across all three assistants, a business was named alongside a former name (19 of 20 checked by hand), so an old name can follow a business for years. These counts are small, and they can't show whose access had lapsed. They show that when a listing looks unmanaged or disagrees with other sources, the assistant hedges or warns the customer.

What our earlier study found about matching details

Before this research, we studied assistant conversations from late July to August 2026 across eight trades, recording the reasons assistants gave for naming a business or leaving it out. These bear most directly on keeping a profile current:

• A direct local phone number that a person answers came up in 290 conversations and cost a business its place in 147.
• The same name, phone, address and license across independent listings came up in 79 conversations and cost a business its place in 37.
• Looked at one detail at a time, a matching phone number came up in 81 conversations (and cost a place in 29), a matching street address in 66 (22) and a matching business name in 37 (28).
• Whether the ownership or license holder had changed recently came up in 17 conversations and cost a business its place in 8.

One conversation can involve several reasons, so these counts overlap and should never be added together. They show what assistants said they weighed, not that fixing your profile access would change who gets named.

How to set up access so the business never loses its profile

Work through these steps once, then repeat the check whenever someone joins, leaves or stops working with you.

1. Find out who has access today

Open People and access and write down every owner, manager and pending invite ². If you can't remove anyone from that page, you probably have manager access only ². Ask whoever set up the profile which account they used, and cancel invites you don't recognize.

2. Make the business the primary owner

• Use a Google Account the business controls, not one tied to a single employee. Google says you can link a company email address to a Google Account ¹³.
• Turn on 2-Step Verification for that account. Google says it adds an extra layer of security in case your password is stolen ¹⁴.
• Add a second trusted owner, such as a business partner. A profile needs at least one other owner or manager before primary ownership can be transferred ².

3. Give everyone else their own login, usually as a manager

Invite staff and outside help by their own email address ². Make an agency a manager, as Google's agency rules advise ⁴. Remember that managers can still change your phone number, hours and name ², so keep the list short.

4. Decide who updates what, and check monthly

Write down who changes hours, who answers reviews and who checks updates Google makes ⁷. When a third party manages your profile, Google suggests reviewing its performance, photos and current hours each month ⁹.

5. Plan every handoff before it happens

1. Add the replacement person or new owner first, with their own Google Account ².
2. If the business is being sold or the main account is changing, make the new account the primary owner ³.
3. Wait out the 7-day limit for new owners before removing anyone they still depend on ².
4. Then remove the person who is leaving. Their past review replies and posts stay on the profile ².
5. When ending an agency contract, ask in writing for exclusive control back. Google gives the agency 7 business days to return it ⁴.
6. Check that the phone number on the profile is one the business controls ⁶.

6. If someone else holds your profile, request ownership

If you're authorized to manage the business but another account owns its profile, Google lets you request ownership ¹⁵:

1. Go to business.google.com/add and enter your business name and address.
2. Choose your business. You'll see a message that someone else may manage the profile.
3. Select Request Access, fill out the form and submit it.

The current owner is emailed and has 3 days to respond ¹⁵. If they don't, you may get the option to claim the profile, though Google says that option isn't always available ¹⁵. If you serve customers at their homes and have no shop or office, Google asks you to contact support instead and describe the issue as Transfer ownership of listing ¹⁵. If the account is yours but you've forgotten its login, Google points you to its account recovery troubleshooter ⁵. If an agency won't give your profile back, you can report it through Google's third-party complaint form ⁴.

7. Check the result where customers see it

After any change, look up your business on Google Maps and confirm the name, phone number, hours and website, allowing up to 30 days for review ⁸. Then ask an assistant for your kind of job in your town. If it gives an old number or name, find where that detail lives and fix it there too.

Questions owners ask

How do I access my Google Business Profile?

Sign in to the Google Account that owns or manages the profile. Then search your business name and city on Google, or search "my business". You can also tap Business in the Google Maps app. If your profile appears but you can't edit it, you're signed in to the wrong account, or someone else holds the profile.

How do I add a manager or another user to my Google Business Profile?

Open your profile, select More, then Business Profile settings, then People and access. Select Add, enter the person's Google Account email, choose Owner or Manager and select Invite. Only owners can add or remove people. Managers can still edit most business details, including the phone number and hours, so add only people you trust.

How do I transfer primary ownership of a Google Business Profile?

The current primary owner opens People and access, selects the person who should take over, selects Edit next to Access and chooses Primary owner. That person must already be an owner or manager on the profile. A newly added owner must wait seven days before some changes are allowed, so plan handoffs a week ahead.

How do I get access to a Google Business Profile someone else controls?

Go to business.google.com/add, enter your business name and address, choose your business and select Request Access. The current owner gets an email and has three days to respond. If they don't, you may be able to claim the profile, though not always. Service-area businesses without a storefront are asked to contact Google support instead.

Can I change the email on my Google Business Profile?

Google's help pages don't describe a way to change the email on a profile. Instead, invite the new email address as an owner and make it the primary owner. Remove the old account once the seven-day waiting period for new owners has passed. Transferring primary ownership this way keeps the profile's reviews and history.

Should my marketing agency be an owner or a manager of my profile?

Usually a manager. Google tells agencies to make the business owner the owner and themselves the manager, and requires that clients keep ownership at all times. When you end the relationship, Google gives the agency seven business days to return exclusive control and remove its own access.

See it on your own website

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