Estate planning as a Meta Ads account holder

Meta Ads is the advertising platform a person uses to run ads across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and the Audience Network from Meta Ads Manager. It is not a separate login: an ad account is created under, and signs in with, the owner's personal Facebook account, and the ad account sits inside a business portfolio (Business Manager) where access is granted by role. The estate-relevant assets are any unspent prepaid balance on a manual-payments ad account (Meta calls this "available funds"; the Self-Serve Ad Terms call prepaid amounts an "Advertiser Balance"), the live campaigns that keep showing ads and billing the payment method on file until someone pauses them, the billing records the estate needs for the final return, and the access roles inside the business portfolio. Meta publishes a deceased-user process for the PERSONAL Facebook account — memorialization or removal — but no published Meta process reaches a business portfolio or an ad account. The estate's practical concerns are stopping the spend, getting the billing records, and asking about an unspent prepaid balance that Meta's own terms say is not refundable except where required by law.

After a Meta Ads account holder dies, Meta Platforms, Inc. may transfer accounts to a designated recipient, but this is handled case by case. The outcome depends on the documentation provided and is entirely at Meta Platforms, Inc.'s discretion.

What happens at death

Meta has no estate process for an ad account. Its published deceased-user forms address the personal Facebook account — the account is memorialized (the default) or permanently removed — and the Meta Terms of Service make that account non-transferable: a user agrees not to "share your password, give access to your Facebook account to others, or transfer your account to anyone else (without our permission)," and "No Transfer: You will not transfer any of your rights or obligations under these Terms to anyone else without our consent." The Meta Commercial Terms carry the same bar on the business side. The ad account itself lives inside a business portfolio, where access runs on roles rather than ownership: an admin has full control over settings, people, accounts, and tools, and a finance editor can edit payment methods and financial details. So whether anyone can act at all after a death depends on whether the decedent granted someone a role while alive; if nobody holds one, no published Meta channel adds the estate. On the money: a manual-payments ad account can hold a prepaid balance (Meta's "available funds"), and the Meta Self-Serve Ad Terms state that prepaid amounts, which they call an "Advertiser Balance," "are not legal tender or currency; are not redeemable, refundable (except where required by law or compliance or otherwise stated in our terms), or exchangeable for any sum or money or monetary value... and do not constitute or confer upon you any personal property right." Meta's help center separately documents that refund decisions are final and made on a case-by-case basis. Nothing about a death stops the advertising: live campaigns keep showing ads and billing the payment method, or drawing down the prepaid funds, until someone pauses them, the funds run out, or the payment method fails. Stopping the spend is the time-sensitive part; the balance question is discretionary and is not assured.

Frequently asked questions