How to move a Google Analytics 4 property from the agency's account to yours

To move a GA4 property from the agency's Analytics account to your own, someone with the Administrator role on both accounts opens Admin, clicks Property details under Property, clicks Move property, selects your account, chooses how permissions are handled and clicks Move. Google says the tag ID stays the same and the reporting data moves with the property, so the website's tag does not need to change. In practice, either you give the agency person Administrator on your account for the move, or the agency gives you Administrator on its account.

This guide is for a business whose agency set up Google Analytics 4 inside the agency's own Analytics account. If you only need to give an agency access to a property you already own, see how to give an agency access to GA4.

When you need to move a property

A Google Analytics account holds one or more properties. Google's user management article says that a user added at account level has access to every property in that account. So when your property sits in the agency's account, the agency's account-level users can see it, and the account around it is the agency's to manage.

Google's move article names hiring a new agency as one reason to move a property. Moving it into your own account puts it under your control without losing its data.

If the agency created a whole Analytics account just for your business, you may not need a move at all. Google's ownership article describes handing over an account by adding a new person who can edit and manage users and then removing the old owner. In today's terms: the agency adds you as Administrator at account level, and you then remove the agency's people.

Who needs which role

Google says the person who moves a property needs the Administrator and Editor roles on both the source account (the agency's) and the destination account (yours). In Google's roles article, Administrator includes the permissions of Editor, so Administrator on both accounts is enough. The glossary explains the Analytics roles.

There are two ways to get one person into that position:

• The agency person moves it. They already have Administrator on the agency's account. You give them Administrator on your account, at account level, for the move.
• You move it. Then the agency has to give you Administrator on its account, which gives you access to every property in it.

The first is the one this guide follows.

Before you start: your own Analytics account

If your business has no Analytics account of its own yet, create one. Google's setup article gives these steps:

1. Go to analytics.google.com and sign in with a Google account that belongs to your business.
2. If this is the first time this Google account uses Analytics, click Start Measuring. Otherwise, in Admin, click Create, then Account.
3. Enter an account name and choose the data-sharing settings.
4. Click Next. Google's setup then continues with a first property for the account.

Then give the agency person access to your account for the move:

1. In Admin, under Account, click Access Management.
2. Click +, then Add users.
3. Enter the email address of the agency person's Google account.
4. Select the Administrator role.
5. Click Add.

Steps to move the property

The agency person, with Administrator on both accounts, does this:

1. Select the property to move.
2. In Admin, under Property, click Property details.
3. Click Move property.
4. Select the destination account, which is your account.
5. Choose the permission setting (next section).
6. Click Move.
7. Confirm data processing, then click Save.

Keep or replace the property's permissions

Google offers two options when a property moves:

• Keep existing property permissions: the current users of the property are copied with it, and the property does not inherit your account's users. Google adds that users who have account-level access in the source account get property-level access in the destination account. With an agency's account, that means everyone with account-level access to the agency's account.
• Replace existing property permissions with permissions of the destination account: the property inherits the users of your account.

Our advice: when the move is part of taking the property back from an agency, choose Replace, so that the property gets your account's users instead of the agency's. If the agency keeps working for you, add it again on the property with the role it needs, as described in the GA4 access guide.

What moves and what stays

According to Google:

• Moves with the property: the tag ID, property settings, data streams and their settings, all reporting data, and customizations such as User-ID, remarketing audiences, custom definitions, data import and custom tables.
• Stays connected: linked accounts such as Google Ads and AdSense, and integrations such as Firebase, BigQuery, Campaign Manager 360, Display & Video 360 and Search Ads 360.
• Stays behind: the change history from before the move remains in the agency's account. Changes after the move are recorded in yours.
• Billing: applies only to Analytics 360 properties, and continues as long as the property keeps its 360 status.

When a property cannot be moved

Google lists these cases:

• The two accounts belong to different Google Marketing Platform organizations, or only the destination account belongs to one. An organization admin has to link the source account to the same organization.
• The property is set to the 360 service level and the account's link to the organization has not been verified.
• The person does not have the Administrator and Editor roles on the destination account.
• The property is linked to Google Ad Manager. Google says to contact your Google Marketing Platform support representative to unlink it first, and relink after the move.
• Unsampled reports are still being processed for the property. Wait for them to finish and try again.
• The destination account already has its maximum number of properties.

Two more limits apply. A property with subproperties can only move after all its subproperties are removed, and a subproperty cannot be moved on its own. A roll-up property can only move after its source properties are removed from it, and a source property must first be removed from its roll-up property.

After the move

1. Lower or remove the agency person's account-level role. In Admin, under Account, click Access Management, find the person and either change their role or select the check box and click REMOVE. Google says deleting users needs the Administrator role at account level.
2. Give the agency what it needs on the property only, if it keeps working for you. See the GA4 access guide.
3. Leave the tag alone. The tag ID has not changed.
4. Tell the agency that its source account may now be empty. Google says an empty source account can be deleted, and that an empty account still counts against the maximum number of Analytics accounts.

If you are changing agency, the guide to removing an old agency's access covers Meta and Google in one place.