Transferring team ownership

A team has exactly one owner. The owner is the billing contact, the only person who can delete the team, and the only person who can transfer ownership somewhere else. If you're leaving a company, selling a project, or just want a different person on the credit card, transfer ownership rather than deleting and re-inviting.

The action is irreversible from the old owner's side — once you transfer, the new owner has to transfer it back if you want it back.

Who can do it

Owner only.

Admins, editors, and viewers cannot transfer ownership, even via the API. The button doesn't appear for them. Calls to the transfer endpoint return 403 Forbidden.

This is deliberate. Ownership transfer changes the billing contact, the team's deletion authority, and the legal billing relationship — it can't be a delegated task.

The flow

Open Team settings → Danger zone → Transfer ownership.
Pick the new owner from a dropdown of current team members. The new owner must already be a team member with at least editor role.
Confirm by typing the team name (the standard "are you sure" guard).
The new owner gets an email saying ownership has been transferred to them. The old owner gets a confirmation receipt.

The transfer is instant — no acceptance step, no pending state. As soon as you click confirm, the role swap happens.

What changes immediately

The previous owner becomes an admin of the team. They keep dashboard access and most permissions, but lose: deletion authority, ownership-transfer authority, and billing contact status.
The new owner is now the billing contact. The next invoice will be in their name and addressed to their email.
Any pending invoices that were already issued to the old owner remain on their billing history but the team's active subscription is now on the new owner's account.

Billing implications

This is the part that bites people. Read carefully.

Active subscription transfers with the team. The plan, the renewal date, the seat count — all unchanged.
Payment method does not transfer. The new owner must add a payment method before the next renewal or the subscription will go past_due. The new owner gets a prompt on first login after the transfer.
Card on file: the old owner's card is immediately unlinked from this team's subscription. Their card is not charged for any future invoices.
Outstanding invoices are owned by whoever was the owner at the time the invoice was issued. They don't follow the transfer.
Tax IDs and billing addresses reset. The new owner needs to set their own.

If the new owner is on a different country / currency than the old owner, the next invoice may be issued in the new currency. Check the Billing page after transfer to confirm.

Side effects on tokens

Tokens minted by the old owner are kept. Their abilities are unchanged. The old owner is now an admin, so all their existing tokens are still within the maximum ability set for an admin (which is the same as owner).
Tokens minted by the new owner are kept. Their abilities are unchanged.
No token is automatically revoked by the transfer.

If the old owner is leaving the team entirely, follow up by removing them as a member — that revokes all their tokens.

What can go wrong

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Transfer button is disabled	You're not the owner	Owner only
New owner not in dropdown	Target user is not a team member, or has only `viewer` role	Invite them first or upgrade them to `editor`+
Subscription went `past_due` after transfer	New owner didn't add a payment method	Have them add one in Billing
Old owner can't see the team anymore	They were also removed as a member	Re-invite as admin if needed

Why ownership-transfer is a distinct action

It's not just a role change. It updates the billing contact, swaps the legal subscription holder, and removes deletion authority from the previous owner — three things that a regular role change does not do. Bundling them as one explicit action keeps the consequences obvious.

Recovering from a mistaken transfer

If you transferred to the wrong person:

Contact the new owner immediately and ask them to transfer it back.
They follow the same flow with you as the target.
Their card is unlinked, your card is re-linked, you're back where you started.

If the new owner is unreachable or unwilling, support cannot reverse the transfer for you — the action is intentional and the new owner has full legal authority over the team. Treat it like changing the name on a bank account: hard to undo, easy to do correctly.

Audit log

Ownership transfers are recorded in the team's audit log with both old and new owner identities, timestamp, and IP address. The audit log is visible to admins on the team and to support if you need help reconciling.