Guide Billing & Account

How to transfer your account to someone else

Handing a hosting account over properly, in the right order, so ownership genuinely changes and nothing goes offline.

iFastHosting Support Team Updated 26 August 2026 6 min read Intermediate

Selling a website, closing a business, or simply handing a project over to a client all eventually raise the same question: how do you actually give someone else your hosting account? It is more than sharing a password — done properly, it changes who is legally and financially responsible for the service, which is why it is not purely a self-service setting.

Decide exactly what is transferring

Before contacting anyone, be clear about the scope. A full account transfer, the transfer of one specific hosting service within a larger account, or just a domain name moving to someone else's account, are three different requests with different implications. Sort out which one you actually mean first — it changes what support needs from you and how the request is handled.

A domain and a hosting plan can move separately

If the domain and the hosting are on different accounts, or you want them to end up on different accounts after the transfer, say so explicitly. Domain ownership transfers and hosting account transfers are handled differently, and assuming one covers the other is a common source of confusion partway through.

Back everything up before you start

Regardless of how smoothly a transfer goes, having your own independent copy of the site, its database and any email is good practice before any account-level change. See how to back up your website. This is not a sign of distrust in the process — it is the same discipline you would apply before any change that touches account ownership.

How to start a transfer

Contact support to explain what you want to do
Open a ticket describing the transfer: the service involved, who the current owner is, and who the new owner will be. This is not typically a button you click yourself, because it changes billing responsibility and needs to be handled carefully.
Be ready to confirm your identity
As the current account holder, you will likely need to confirm you are authorising the change. This protects you as much as anyone — it is what stops an account being transferred away by someone other than its actual owner.
The new owner will typically need to confirm too
Depending on how the transfer is structured, the incoming owner may need their own account, or may need to confirm acceptance of the transfer and its billing responsibility.
Agree who handles the current invoice
If there is a service actively running or about to renew during the transfer, clarify who is responsible for that specific payment before the handover completes, rather than leaving it ambiguous.
Update contacts and payment details afterwards
Once ownership has changed, the new owner should update the account email, any additional contacts, and the payment method, so the account genuinely reflects who is now responsible for it. See changing your account email and updating billing details.

Do not just hand over your login

Giving someone your password is not the same as transferring an account, and it leaves you still legally responsible for a service someone else now controls, with your payment method potentially still attached to it. A proper transfer changes who support recognises as the account holder; a shared login does not.

If you only need to give someone temporary or partial access

Not every situation calls for a full transfer. If a developer just needs to work on the site, or an accountant needs to see invoices, adding them as a contact is a lighter-weight option that does not change who owns the account. See how to add another contact to your account for that instead.

Once the transfer is complete

The previous owner should confirm they no longer have — or want — access, and the new owner should check that everything expected came across correctly: the service itself, the domain if included, and any pending invoices resolved as agreed. If the previous owner intends to close their own account entirely afterwards, see how to cancel a service once the transfer is confirmed and nothing further is needed from that side.

Why this is worth doing properly

A transfer done informally — a shared password, a login left active "just in case" — tends to resurface as a problem months later: an old owner still able to see invoices they should not, a new owner unable to get support to recognise them as the account holder, or a payment method that belongs to nobody currently involved. Taking the extra step of going through support at the point of handover avoids all of that, and it means both sides have a clear record of when responsibility actually changed hands, which matters if a question ever comes up afterwards about who was in control of the account on a given date.