How to Delete Meta Business Account

Thinking about deleting your Meta Business Account feels a lot like cleaning out the garage—you know it needs to be done, but it feels complicated and you’re not sure where to start. This guide cuts through the confusion, giving you the exact steps to prepare your account and delete it for good, without any unexpected surprises.

Before You Hit Delete: Understanding the Consequences

Permanently deleting your Meta Business Account is an irreversible action with significant consequences. Before you proceed, it's vital to understand exactly what this means for your marketing assets and data.

When you delete the account, you’re not just removing a profile, you're cutting the cord on the central hub that connects all your business activities on Facebook and Instagram. This means you will lose access to, and control over, everything contained within that Business Account.

What Will Be Permanently Deleted?

Facebook Pages and Instagram Accounts: While the Pages and accounts themselves might not be deleted (if they can be reassigned), their connection to your ads, data, and permissions through this business account will be severed.
Ad Accounts: All ad accounts associated with the business will be permanently deleted. This includes all active and past campaigns, ad sets, ads, billing history, and performance data. You cannot recover this information once it's gone.
Pixels and Event Datasets: Your Meta Pixel data, conversion tracking, custom audiences built from pixel events, and all related analytics will be erased. This is a huge loss, as this historical data is invaluable for lookalike audiences and retargeting campaigns.
Product Catalogs: Any product catalogs used for dynamic ads or Facebook & Instagram Shops will be deleted.
Custom Audiences: All saved audiences, including custom audiences from customer lists, website traffic, or app activity, will be removed.
Apps and Integrations: Any apps connected via the developer settings will be disconnected.
User Access and Permissions: Everyone who had a role in the Business Account—admins, employees, partners—will lose their access.

Is Deletion Your Only Option?

Sometimes, deleting the entire organization isn't necessary. Consider if one of these less permanent solutions fits your needs:

If you want to leave the business but keep it active for others: You can simply remove yourself from the Business Account. Navigate to People under the Users section in your Business Settings, find your name, and click "Remove". Another admin must remain on the account.
If you just want to stop using a specific Page or Ad Account: You can remove individual assets without deleting the entire business structure. This is a great option if you've sold a part of your business or are simply pivoting your strategy and no longer need a specific ad account.

If you've weighed the options and are certain that permanent deletion is the right path, continue to the next step: preparing your account for a clean removal.

The Pre-Deletion Checklist: How to Prepare Your Account for Deletion

Meta has several safeguards in place to prevent accidental deletion of critical business assets. You won’t even see the option to delete your Business Account until you've successfully cleared these requirements. Think of this as tying up all the loose ends before locking the door for good.

Step 1: Settle All Payments and Ad Invoices

First and foremost, Meta will not allow you to delete a business account with an outstanding balance. You must pay any and all charges owed on every ad account connected to your business.

Navigate to Ads Manager for each ad account.
Go to the Billing section.
Check your payment settings and settle any amount due. If you have a payment pending, you may have to wait for it to clear.

Once your balance is zero across all ad accounts, you can proceed to a slightly more complex step: closing the ad accounts themselves.

Step 2: Close Your Connected Ad Accounts

After paying off the balance, you need to formally deactivate each ad account. This is a common point of confusion, but it's a mandatory prerequisite.

Go to your Business Settings.
Under Accounts, click on Ad Accounts.
Select the ad account you want to close.
Click the three-dot menu (...) in the upper right corner and select Deactivate.
Follow the prompts to confirm the deactivation. You will need to provide a reason.

Repeat this process for every single ad account owned by the business.

Step 3: Disconnect Your Pages and Other Business Assets

Next, you must remove all other assets connected to your business account. This is a manual process that involves disconnecting everything one by one.

Removing Facebook Pages

In Business Settings, navigate to Accounts > Pages.
Select the Page you wish to remove.
Click the Remove button. Meta will ask you to confirm.

Note: If the Facebook Page was originally created through this Business Manager, you might have trouble removing it. In some cases, Facebook requires the Page to be moved to another Business Manager or assigned to a personal profile before the original business can be deleted.

Disconnecting Instagram Accounts

In Business Settings, navigate to Accounts > Instagram Accounts.
Select the Instagram account you want to disconnect.
Click the Remove button and confirm your choice.

Removing Other Assets

Go through the entire Accounts and Data Sources list in your Business Settings sidebar. Systematically check and remove assets from the following categories if they are connected:

WhatsApp Accounts
Apps (from Developers section)
Pixels
Catalogs
Offline Event Sets

Step 4: Remove All Users (And Ensure You're The Last Admin Standing)

You cannot delete a Business Account if other people still have access to it. You must remove all employees, partners, and other admins until you are the only person left.

In Business Settings, go to Users > People.
Select each person (other than yourself) and click Remove.
Next, check Users > Partners. If you have granted any agencies or partners access, you must revoke it here by clicking Remove.

How to Permanently Delete Your Meta Business Account (The Final Step)

Once you have completed the entire pre-deletion checklist—all bills are paid, all ad accounts are closed, and all assets and users have been removed—the final step is surprisingly simple. The "Permanently Delete Business" option should now be visible.

Navigate to Business Settings one last time.
In the left-hand navigation menu, click on Business Info.
At the very top, next to your business account name and ID, you should now see a button labeled Permanently Delete Business.
Click the button. Meta will display a final series of warnings explaining what will happen. Read carefully to confirm this is what you want.
Meta will ask you to provide a reason for the deletion and will then ask you to re-enter your password to confirm your identity.
After confirming, your request will be submitted.

There is a 24-hour grace period after you submit the deletion request. During this time, the deletion is pending. If you log back into the account within that window, you will have the option to cancel the deletion. After 24 hours, the action is permanent, and your Meta Business Account and its assets will be gone forever.

Can't Delete Your Business Account? A Quick Troubleshooter

If you get an error message or the "Permanently Delete Business" button is greyed out, it’s almost always because one of the pre-deletion steps was missed. Double-check these common issues:

An uncleared balance: Go back to the Billing section of every ad account. Even a dollar or two can block deletion.
A connected app: This is an easy one to miss. Check under All Tools > App Ads Helper or the Events Manager to ensure no apps are connected.
Something pending review: An appeal for a disabled ad account or Page can sometimes block deletion until it's resolved.
System user permissions: This is a more technical issue, but some app integrations and API access create "system users" that ALSO must be removed. Check under Users > System Users.

Final Thoughts

Deleting a Meta Business Account is a multi-step process that requires careful preparation to untangle all your connected assets. By ensuring your balances are paid, users are removed, and Pages are disconnected, you can make the final deletion clean and straightforward.

While clearing out unused business tools is a necessary task, getting clear insights from your active ones shouldn't be so complicated. That’s why we built Graphed. We connect directly to your marketing and sales platforms—like Meta Ads, Google Analytics, and Shopify—so you can build dashboards and get answers just by asking questions in plain English, putting hours of manual reporting work behind you for good.