To add a user to a Google Business Profile, an owner opens Business Profile settings, then People and access, enters the person's email address and picks a role: Owner or Manager. A manager can do almost everything an owner can, except add or remove users and remove the profile, which makes it the right role for an agency or a member of staff (Google Business Profile Help, Manage your Business Profile owners and managers, checked on 10 November 2026).
That is five clicks. The hard part is who decides which role to give, because it is usually whoever set the profile up: a nephew who is "good with computers", someone in accounts, the agency that built the website.
When we take over a profile, the same three mistakes keep coming up:
- one shared password for suppliers and staff, instead of an invitation for each person;
- the agency added as an owner "so it can do everything", without anyone checking what an owner can do that a manager can't;
- no second owner: if the only account gets locked or the person leaves, nobody holds the keys.
A whole article on one settings screen?
Yes, because getting it wrong is expensive later. Claiming a profile back from a former agency or employee takes days, forms and sometimes an appeal. And the pages people find are often out of date: in the UK results for "add user to google business profile", two of the top guides date from 2021 and early 2024, and one still sends you to a "Users" menu that no longer exists.
In this guide:
- what each role can do, in a table built from Google's Help pages;
- how to add, change and remove a user, plus the 7-day limit;
- which role to give an agency (and the line in Google's Help that argues against making it an owner);
- how to transfer primary ownership when you sell or change hands.
Primary owner, owner, manager: what each one can do (only three things differ)
A profile always has exactly one primary owner, can have several owners and managers, and every user signs in with their own Google Account. Google does not let you add a Google Group as an owner or manager, so invitations go to named people.
Google's Help lists more than twenty capabilities. Managers have all of them except two: adding or removing users and removing the profile. The primary owner has one extra power on top: transferring primary ownership.
| What you can do on the profile | Primary owner | Owner | Manager |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edit name, category, hours, address, phone, website | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Reply to reviews, publish posts, upload photos and logo | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Download insights, use messaging | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Link the profile to a Google Ads account | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Close a location, create business groups | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Add and remove users | Yes | Yes | No |
| Remove the profile | Yes | Yes | No |
| Transfer primary ownership | Yes | See note | No |
So a manager can change the business name?
Yes. The category and the website too. "Manager" does not mean read-only access: it is near-complete operational access. Give it to people who actually work on the profile, not to anyone who wants "a quick look".
Managers used to be called "site managers". If a guide uses that name, or tells you to click "Users" in a left-hand menu, it describes an interface that has gone.
How to add a user to your Google Business Profile (five steps, and access is instant)
Only owners can add users. If you can't see the Add button, you are almost certainly signed in with an account that is only a manager.
- Open your Business Profile (search for your business name on Google, or go through Business Profile Manager).
- Select More, then Business Profile settings, then People and access.
- At the top left, select Add and enter the person's email address.
- Under Access, choose Owner or Manager.
- Select Invite.
Once the invitation is accepted, access is immediate and you get an email. Pending invitations sit under "Pending", where you can cancel them. To change someone's role, select the user, then Edit next to Access: again, owners only.
What if the person doesn't use Gmail?
They don't need to. They need a Google Account, which can be created on the work email address they already use (Google Account Help, Create a Google Account). It is the cleanest set-up: access stays tied to a company address that you can switch off when the person leaves.
The 7-day limit for new users
A new owner or manager has to wait 7 days before they can delete the profile, remove other users or transfer primary ownership. Try earlier and you get an error. If they leave the profile within those 7 days, they are removed and need inviting again.
It protects you from someone walking in and taking the profile in an afternoon. It also means that handing a profile to a new owner never happens on the same day. Invite first, wait a week, then transfer.
Which role to give an agency (manager, and the Help page line that explains why)
Give an agency the manager role: never your password and never primary ownership. This is Google's own position. Its guidelines ask "authorised representatives" (SEO agencies, consultants, booking providers) to encourage the business owner to keep ownership of the profile and add them as managers (Business eligibility and ownership guidelines).
And if the owner asks for it, the representative must transfer ownership immediately.
But if the agency is an owner, not the primary owner, what's the risk?
Bigger than it looks. Any owner can remove other owners and managers and delete the profile. And on the transfer page Google writes: "Co Owners upgrade themselves to Primary Owners" (Transfer primary ownership of a Business Profile). In the sentence before, the same page says only the primary owner can transfer the role.
When the documentation contradicts itself, there is one safe reading: treat every owner as a potential primary owner. And give that role only to people inside the business.
The set-up we use when a business hands us its profile:
- Primary owner: a Google Account in the company's name (on an address such as accounts@), with the password held by the business owner.
- Owner: the business owner or a partner, on their own account. It is the backup if the first account gets locked.
- Manager: us, every other supplier, and the staff who reply to reviews.
If a supplier asks for ownership "so we can do the work", ask which capability in the table above they would be missing as a manager. The honest answer is: adding or removing people, and deleting the profile. Neither is needed to do local SEO.
Registered agencies: organisations, business groups and ID-based invites
Agencies that look after many profiles can register with Google and work from an organisation account, with user groups and business groups (Overview for agencies). In that case the agency won't ask you to invite a person: it gives you a business group ID and you invite that group from your profile, or the agency requests access through Business Profile Manager (Manage agency invites).
Two things to know before you accept:
- an organisation account can't directly own an individual profile, as Google states in its agency overview. Ownership stays with you by design;
- anyone added as a manager or owner of a business group can access every current and future profile in that group (Create and manage business groups). Inside the agency, the whole team assigned to that group can see your profile.
With many locations the picture changes: groups, bulk verification and per-branch permissions are covered in Google Business Profile with multiple locations.
Not sure who holds the keys to your profile?
You have just seen that any owner can remove the other users and delete the profile. We open People and access with you, map who is there and in which role, and put ownership back on a company account before we start on your local visibility.
Book a strategy callHow to transfer primary ownership (when you sell, change hands or the profile sits on the wrong Gmail)
Primary ownership can only go to someone who is already an owner or manager of the profile. If you are the only user, add another one first. Then:
- open the profile and go to More, Business Profile settings, People and access;
- select the user who will take over;
- next to Access, select Edit, choose Primary owner and save.
When you sell the business, Google is clear: transfer primary ownership to the new owner so that the profile's information, reviews included, stays where it is (Google Business Profile Help). The alternative we still see, deleting the profile and starting a new one, throws away years of reviews. Why closing beats deleting is explained in how to remove a business from Google Maps.
The most common case isn't a sale, though. It's a profile created years ago on an employee's personal Gmail. The right sequence: day 1, that employee adds the company account as an owner; day 8, once the 7-day limit has passed, they transfer primary ownership to it; then they remove themselves with "Stop managing". A primary owner can't leave until they have handed the role to someone else.
If that employee no longer replies, invitations are off the table: you request ownership at business.google.com/add. The current owner has 3 days to respond (Request ownership of a Business Profile), and every scenario, appeal included, is in how to claim your business on Google.
When someone leaves: removing a manager or owner (their replies stay)
To remove a user, go to People and access, select the person and choose Remove person: only owners can do it. The person gets an email and can no longer edit the profile.
What they did stays. Review replies, posts and comments written by that user remain on the profile. If a former employee replied badly to a review, removing them doesn't delete the reply: someone who stays has to edit it.
If you can't select the user, there are two reasons: you are trying to remove the primary owner (transfer the role first), or you are signed in with an account that is only a manager.
With an agency ending the relationship the rule is stricter: it must give you back exclusive control of the profile within 7 business days of your request. What to send and what to do if it doesn't comply is in the former-agency section of claiming your profile.
We put it in the diary: once a year, open People and access and remove anyone who no longer works with the business. It takes two minutes, the same two minutes in which you check that primary ownership still sits on a company account.
What people find when they search for profile access (6 Italian results pages and 1 UK one)
Across six Italian searches about profile roles, 18 of 51 organic results were Google's own pages and 8 were in English. We pulled the first page with DataForSEO on 10 November 2026: Google on mobile, Italy, Italian language.
| Italian search (English meaning) | Organic results | Google pages | English-language pages | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| gestione google my business (managing Google My Business) | 8 | 5 | 0 | No |
| aggiungere utente google my business (add a user) | 8 | 3 | 7 | Carousel + 2 results |
| trasferire proprietà google my business (transfer ownership) | 9 | 5 | 0 | 1 result |
| dare accesso google my business agenzia (give an agency access) | 9 | 0 | 1 | 1 result |
| rimuovere gestore google my business (remove a manager) | 8 | 2 | 0 | Carousel |
| proprietario principale google my business (primary owner) | 9 | 3 | 0 | 1 result |
| Total | 51 | 18 | 8 | Video on 5 of 6 pages |
Three things stand out.
Italians searching "add a user" end up reading English: 7 results out of 8, from Google's English Help to American videos and US agency blogs.
The "give an agency access" search returns nothing about access. None of the 9 titles mentions roles or permissions: they are general profile guides and one agency's services page.
Part of the page is old or off-topic. Six results are dated 2018 to 2022; three are about something else (two on Google Drive files, one on Google Account activity controls).
The UK is better served, but not by much. For "add user to google business profile" on 10 November 2026, Google showed an AI Overview citing six sources (two Google Help pages and one YouTube video) plus an embedded video, then a carousel of four videos. Of the six organic results, the LOCALiQ UK guide dates from 2021 and the Victorious guide from January 2024 still describes the old "Users" menu.
Whoever has access decides what ChatGPT and AI Overviews read (even when nobody is watching)
Your Google profile is one of the sources AI answers draw on, even for businesses with no walk-in customers. When we asked ChatGPT whether Sunscape is a reliable company, the answer rested on 9 links, and one was Google Maps (the test is in local AI visibility).
Whoever has access keeps that data current, or lets it go stale. A profile left in a former agency's account rarely disappears: it freezes. Holiday hours never updated, reviews without replies, the old phone number. An AI answer that uses it as a source starts from data frozen on the day the supplier left.
No role gets your business cited. There is a minimum condition, though: someone inside the business must be able to fix the profile on the day something changes.
Managers can also link the profile to a Google Ads account, so if a different agency runs your ads, it needs manager access too. How we set up local campaigns is on our Google Ads page.
FAQs on Google Business Profile users, owners and managers
Yes. It is how Google intends it to work: invite the agency from People and access with the Manager role, and it signs in with its own Google Account. Registered agencies may also ask you to invite their business group using an ID.
No. According to Google's Help, managers cannot remove the profile or add and remove users. They can still edit the name, category, hours and website, so only give the role to people who actually work on the profile.
It depends: if the user was added less than 7 days ago, Google blocks the transfer until the period ends. The role can only go to someone who is already an owner or manager of the profile, and only owners can change roles.
No. Google's Help says Google Groups cannot be owners or managers. Invite each person with their own Google Account, which can be created on a work email address.
No. A removed user loses access, but the review replies, posts and comments they published stay on the profile. If a reply needs changing, a remaining owner or manager has to edit it.
In short (and why the profile belongs to an inbox, not a person)
Every user on their own account, never a shared password.
Manager for agencies, suppliers and staff: they can do nearly everything except decide who gets in.
Owner only for people inside the business, because a co-owner can make themselves primary owner.
Every ownership handover needs 7 days in the diary.
Once a year, clear out People and access.
The idea to take away: the person who runs your profile today will change one day; accounts@ won't. If the primary owner is a company inbox, every change of supplier becomes one click in People and access instead of a claim. Everything else about the profile, from setting it up to optimising it, is in our Google Business Profile guide; the bigger picture is in our local SEO guide and, if you want to do it with us, on our SEO services page.
