Google Business Profile
How to Claim a Google Business Profile Someone Else Created
If a Google Business Profile for your business already exists but you can't get into it, someone — often Google itself, sometimes a well-meaning customer or a former agency — created or claimed it first. Here's how to take it back.
Updated 20 July 2026 · 6 min read
Why a profile can exist before you've made one
Google Business Profile listings don't only get created by owners. Google's own systems generate basic listings from map data, business directories, and public records — so a profile for your address and trading name can appear with nobody at your business ever touching it. Customers can also trigger a listing by leaving a review or a suggested edit on a place that didn't have one yet.
It's also common for a web designer, marketing agency, or a previous owner of the business to have set the profile up years ago under an account you no longer have access to. If that relationship ended without a handover, the profile is effectively locked from your side even though it's clearly your business.
Check what you're actually dealing with
Search your business name on Google and Google Maps first. If a listing appears, click through to it and look for an "Own this business?" or "Claim this business" prompt — that means it's currently unclaimed, and you can usually verify into it directly using the normal setup flow.
If there's no claim prompt, the profile already has an owner. That's a different process: instead of claiming, you need to request access from whoever currently manages it.
Requesting access to a profile someone else owns
From the listing, look for a "Request access" option (on the Business Profile itself, or via business.google.com after searching for the business name and address). This sends a notification to the current owner or managers asking them to add you.
If you know the current owner — a former staff member, a past agency — the fastest path is simply asking them to add you as an owner or manager directly; it takes them a couple of minutes and skips the whole request queue.
If you can't reach them or they don't respond, Google gives the existing owner roughly a week to act on an access request before offering you further options to take over the profile. Be patient through that window — trying to force a second listing in the meantime tends to create a duplicate you'll have to clean up later.
What Google will ask you to prove
Whether you're claiming an unclaimed listing or taking over one nobody else is managing, Google wants evidence that you genuinely run the business at that address: your ABN registration, a recent utility or council rates bill showing the business address, signage or interior photos, or a business licence. Having these ready before you start speeds the whole process up considerably.
The name, address, and phone number you enter need to match your real trading details exactly. Mismatches — a slightly different trading name, an old address — are the most common reason a claim or access request gets held up for manual review.
Don't create a second listing to work around it
It's tempting to just set up a brand-new profile when the existing one is locked, but Google's systems will often surface both listings for the same address, splitting your reviews, photos, and search visibility between two profiles that customers can't tell apart. Untangling that later means going through Google's merge process, which takes longer than claiming the original would have.
Work through the claim or access-request flow on the existing listing, even when it's slower than you'd like. It protects the reviews and history already attached to that profile.