How to find your Meta ad account ID

Open Meta Ads Manager: your ad account's name and ID number are in the account dropdown menu at the top of the page, and clicking the dropdown shows the IDs of your other ad accounts. The same number is in your browser's address bar after act=. It is a number that names the account, not a login: on its own it gives nobody access.

Find it in Ads Manager

1. Go to Meta Ads Manager.
2. Look at the business asset dropdown menu at the top of the page. Your ad account name and ID number are shown there.
3. Click the dropdown to see the ID numbers of your other ad accounts.

Find it in the address bar

With Ads Manager open, look at the address in your browser. Meta's tip if you cannot spot it: look for act= in the URL. The digits after it are the ad account ID.

Request or claim: check before you send it

In Meta Business Suite, an ad account ID can be used in two ways under Settings > Ad accounts > + Add, and they end very differently.

• Request access to an ad account in another business portfolio. The agency gets the access it asks for, and the ad account stays where it is. Meta's example of who uses this is an agency whose client owns the ad account. The ad account owner, or someone with full control of the business portfolio it is in, approves it.
• Add an ad account. This claims the account into the agency's business portfolio. Meta says adding an existing ad account to a portfolio "may permanently move it into the portfolio, meaning it can't be deleted or transferred to another portfolio". If a person owns the ad account, that person has to approve the claim first.

If your ad account is already in your business portfolio, Meta does not let another portfolio add it: an ad account can only be in one business portfolio, and Meta points the other side to a request for access instead. So a claim can only reach an ad account outside any business portfolio, and a person who owns it has to approve.

When you send your ad account ID, say which one you expect: a request for access. If you are asked to approve a claim of your ad account by a business that should only work on it, decline. If an agency already claimed an account, see how to get your Meta assets out of an agency's business portfolio.

Where the ID goes next

• The agency requests access: it goes to Settings > Ad accounts > + Add > Request access to an ad account in another business portfolio, enters the Ad account ID, picks partial access or full control, and clicks Confirm. The steps are in how agencies request access.
• You give access instead: from your business portfolio you need the agency's business portfolio ID, not your ad account ID. Follow how to give an agency access to a Meta ad account.

If the agency asked for a different number, such as your business portfolio ID or a pixel ID, which ID does the agency want? lists what each Meta ID is for.

The act_ prefix

Meta's API and developer documentation write an ad account as act_ followed by its number, so a reporting tool or a developer may show you act_ and then a long number. The number is the same ID you see in Ads Manager.

An ad account outside a business portfolio

If you advertise from a personal ad account that is not in a business portfolio, you find the ID the same way in Ads Manager. An agency can still request access to an ad account owned by a person, and you can also give someone at the agency a role in Ads Manager: Admin, Advertiser or Analyst. Meta says giving someone a role does not let them log in as you. The ad account guide has both routes.