How-to · Updated October 11, 2026
Get back into a Google Ads account you've been locked out of
Updated October 11, 2026
20 minutes
To get back into a locked Google Ads account, recover the old Admin login first if it is on your company's domain: a Google Workspace admin can reset it. Otherwise ask any current Admin to invite you. If none can, file Google's access request form with the account's customer ID and proof the business owns it.
Before you start
- The email address that held Admin. Whether it is on your company's own domain decides the route.
- The account's customer ID. Google's access request form asks for the individual account's ID, not the ID of a manager account above it.
- A Google login of your own on a business email address. It becomes the new Admin.
Work out which lock you are facing
The fix depends on whose login is stuck: yours, a former Admin's on your company's domain, or one nobody can reach.
- If your own email is an Admin but sign-in fails on the password or the 2-Step Verification code, recover the Google Account itself through Google's account recovery steps. Google Ads says lost phone numbers and 2-Step Verification problems are outside the scope of Google Ads support.
- If the only Admin was a former employee or a provider, find out which email address held it.
- If that address ends in your company's own domain and your email runs on Google Workspace, use the next part. If it is a personal address, such as a Gmail account, or sits on a provider's domain, go to the last part.
Recover a former employee's login on your domain
If the Admin login is on your company's Google Workspace domain, your Workspace admin can get it back without a Google Ads support case.
- In the Google Admin console, a Workspace admin with reset password privileges (a super admin, if the former employee was a Workspace admin) opens Menu, Directory, Users, points to the former employee and clicks Reset password, chooses Create password, clicks Reset, then Copy Password.
- If that user was deleted, a super administrator can restore it from the same Users page: More options, then Recently deleted users, then Recover. Google allows this up to 20 days after deletion. Google says the restore usually takes up to 24 hours, and in rare cases up to 5 days.
- If the login asks for a 2-Step Verification code from the person's old phone, the admin opens the user, clicks Security, then 2-step verification, then Get Backup Verification Codes, and uses one code to sign in.
- Signed in to Google Ads with that login, click the Admin icon, then Access and security, then the plus button, enter your own business email, choose Admin as the access level and click Send invitation. Accept it from the email.
Ask an Admin, then file Google's access request form
When no Admin login can be recovered, use Google's access request form; access is granted after its support team validates proof of ownership.
- Ask any current Admin to invite your business email. If a provider's manager account owns your account, an Admin of that manager account can also invite users with administrative access. Google calls contacting an existing Admin the best approach.
- If no Admin can be reached, open Google's Google Ads access request form. Fill in End Customer Company Name, and give the customer ID of the locked account itself, not a manager account above it; the Select a Google Ads Customer ID field asks for the individual account.
- Under What type of Account Management is needed? choose Add User, enter your business email, select Admin as the access level, and tick the box that authorizes Google to make the change on your behalf.
- In Summary of the issue, say who held Admin and that they have left. The form does not list the proof it accepts; billing records in the business's name, such as invoices and the payment method on file, are the kind of detail that ties the account to you.
- Click Submit, then click the link in the confirmation email to avoid delays.
Check it worked
Sign in with your own business email, click the Admin icon, then Access and security. Your row should show Admin in the Access level column.
Then remove the old login with Remove access in the Actions column, and add a second Admin from the business. On accounts with more than 3 administrators, another Admin must approve the removal within 20 days under the Security requests tab; Google support cannot approve it for you.
What if the account was hijacked rather than abandoned?
The access request form points to a separate form for reporting a compromised account. Use that one first.
What else the access request form can change
It can also remove a user, change an access level, link or unlink a manager account, or turn administrative ownership on or off.