Want to catch ad issues before Meta restricts your account? Monitor and protect it with Bïrch.
What would you do if you got hit with the warning “Facebook account restricted from advertising"?
Meta can cut off your ability to advertise without any warning. One day your ads are running fine, the next you’re locked out. This guide tells you exactly how to fix it , and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again using Bïrch.
How can I fix my restricted Facebook account?
To fix your restricted Facebook account, go to Business Support Home and follow the steps shown under “What you can do.” The steps you’ll need to take depend on what caused the restriction.
You may be asked to follow these steps:
Confirm your identity
Provide details like your email, phone number, ID, or payment method to prove the account is yours.
Go to Business Support Home, click Account status overview, choose the restricted account, and follow the on-screen steps. Your account will be reinstated if no further action is required.
Complete verification
If unusual activity is detected, you’ll need to verify it’s really you before the account can be reinstated.
In Business Support Home, click Start verification in the What you can do section and follow the steps. You may need to provide your email, ID, or payment method.
Enable two-factor authentication
Add this extra security step to meet Meta’s requirements and protect your account.
Go to Account status overview, select your restricted account, click Secure your account, and complete the steps.
Request a review
If you believe the restriction is a mistake, ask Meta to recheck your account.
In Business Support Home, click Account status overview, select your restricted account, then choose Request review in the What you can do section. Appeals must be submitted within the timeframe shown in your notification. Accounts cannot be reinstated if they were disabled for severe violations or have been restricted for more than 180 days.
How to avoid Facebook ad account restrictions in the future
Running effective Meta ads involves staying compliant and keeping your account healthy. Here are practical tips to avoid future restrictions:
Use tools to screen ad creatives
Regularly reviewing your ad creatives is one of the simplest ways to protect your account from future restrictions.
As we’ve already seen, when ads perform poorly or are irrelevant to your audience, people may hide them or give negative feedback. Over time, that can lower your relevance scores and hurt your account quality. If this continues, or if the ads repeatedly violate policies, it can escalate into delivery restrictions or even a ban.
Reporting tools like Bïrch’s top creatives report show you which ads are bringing in the strongest results and which are falling behind. You can run a report to see what’s working and what needs replacing. That way, you spend more time scaling the creatives that keep your account in good standing and less time guessing what might work.
You can also set up a rule to pause underperforming ads before they hurt your account quality. This helps prevent issues from building up over time while keeping your budget focused on ads that deliver.
Follow Meta’s advertising policies carefully
Make sure every ad you run follows Meta’s Advertising Standards and related policies. It’s a good idea to review the guidelines before launching new campaigns and check them again if you’re introducing a new product or targeting a new audience.
Pay special attention to rules around prohibited content, restricted industries, targeting criteria, and landing page quality. Even unintentional violations can trigger restrictions, so it’s worth taking the time to confirm that your ad creative and destination page comply.
Maintain a healthy business portfolio feedback score
Your feedback score reflects how satisfied customers are with their post-purchase experience when they buy from your shops or product ads. Low scores often come from complaints about product quality, misleading descriptions, or slow delivery.
Aim to keep your score above three by setting clear expectations in your ads, delivering products as described, and providing good customer service. A score below 1 could lead to your business losing the ability to advertise or sell products on Meta platforms.
Monitor ad performance and user feedback
Keep an eye on how people are responding to your ads in Account Quality and ad relevance diagnostics. A high number of negative feedback reports, such as users hiding your ads from view, can increase the risk of restrictions.
Negative ad feedback can hurt your ad performance and can even lead to account restrictions if it happens often. If they’re not interested, users can click the “…” on any ad to hide it or stop seeing ads from that advertiser. Proper audience setup and putting out relevant ad content help reduce the number of people who hide your ads.
Regularly review performance metrics and comments to spot potential issues early. If you see signs that an ad is frustrating or misleading users, update or pause it before it triggers enforcement.
Identify fatigued ads and find best performers using Bïrch Explorer.
Avoid associating with flagged business assets
Before accepting admin access or sharing payment methods, make sure the asset has a clean record in Account Quality. Working with flagged assets can put your own account at risk, even if you haven’t broken any rules yourself.
Don’t create duplicate or burner ad accounts
Opening extra ad accounts to get around a restriction can lead to further enforcement. Meta can link them to your existing profile, payment details, or Pages, and may apply the same restriction to the new accounts.
Only create a new account for legitimate reasons after resolving the original issue and making sure your ads comply with all policies.
Verify your identity early
Meta may ask you to enable two-factor authentication or provide proof like a government-issued ID, business license, or payment method details. Having these in place early can prevent disruptions to your advertising and speed up reviews if a restriction occurs.
How long does a Facebook restriction last?
Restriction length depends on the type of violation and Meta’s review process.
- Minor violations: These are small policy breaches, such as ad text errors or unclear landing page content. Once the issue is corrected, Meta often resolves these quickly and lifts them within 24 to 72 hours.
- Repeat or severe violations: This includes ongoing policy breaches, prohibited content, or attempts to bypass enforcement. These can result in a permanent restriction with no option to reinstate the account.
- Manual reviews: When Meta needs to investigate further, reviews typically take about 48 hours—although complex cases or high appeal volumes can lengthen the process.
Why your account got restricted
There are several reasons why Meta might restrict an account. Understanding the most common ones can help you avoid them.
Violating community and advertising standards
Meta’s advertising policies forbid:
- Unsafe and discriminatory practices: Advertisers are expected to follow local laws, avoid discrimination, and not promote illegal or unsafe products.
- Fraud or scams: Ads that mislead, scam, or manipulate users are not allowed.
- Negative or violent messaging: Ads must not include shocking, violent, or overly sexual content, or use language meant to provoke or offend. Content that promotes negative self-image to sell products, especially around health or weight loss, is also not allowed.
- Lack of transparency: Meta sees transparency as a core principle, which is why all active ads are public in the Ad Library. Advertisers are expected to clearly identify who is behind the ads, especially for political or issue-based content.
Unusual activity
Meta may temporarily restrict your account if it detects suspicious activity, such as logins from unfamiliar locations or unexpected changes to your business assets. Restrictions can include losing the ability to add users, create new ad accounts, or access certain features. You can check for next steps in Business Support Home.
Using fake or unverified accounts
Meta expects advertisers to use real accounts tied to their actual identity. Using a fake profile or creating a new one just to get around a restriction can lead to enforcement.
Accounts can also be flagged for missing verification steps—ID verification or two-factor authentication—which are required to access and manage certain business portfolios. Without verification, you could lose access to advertising tools, payment methods, or shop permissions.
Repeatedly submitting disapproved ads
If you keep resubmitting ads that have already been disapproved, even with small changes, Meta may see it as an attempt to circumvent the review process. This can cause your account to be restricted, especially if the ads break the same policies each time.
Read more: Why was my Facebook ad rejected? 8 reasons & fixes
Intellectual property or privacy violations
Meta doesn’t allow ads that use copyrighted or trademarked material—brand logos, product images, music, videos, or any other protected work—without permission.
Ads can also be restricted if they misuse someone’s personal information or violate privacy rights. Repeated violations of intellectual property rules can lead to further enforcement, including losing access to advertising tools.
What if my ad account restriction is not lifted?
There are three things you can do if the restriction is not lifted.
Appeal again with new information
If your first appeal is denied and you still believe the restriction is a mistake, you can request another review in Business Support Home. Here’s some of the new information you might send:
- Proof of identity or business legitimacy, such as a government-issued ID, business license, or tax document
- Evidence that you’ve fixed the issue, like screenshots of updated ad creatives, a compliant landing page, or removal of prohibited content
- Any other documentation or explanation that directly addresses the reason for the restriction
When you fill out the appeal form, use the text field to clearly explain your updates and why your account should be reinstated. Then, attach your supporting files. It’s best to be specific and keep it relevant to Meta’s stated reason for the restriction.
Avoid sending repeated appeals without adding anything new. Meta only allows a limited number of reviews, and resubmitting the same request without changes can reduce your chances of a reversal.
Contact Meta support directly
After the review, if you still believe your account is wrongfully restricted, you can always try contacting the Meta Support team.
- From Business Support Home, go to Account overview in the left menu.
- Click on Help at the bottom.
- The help menu will appear on the right, with a button to contact the support team.
- Submit your issue, attach screenshots or documents if you can, and include your ad account ID to help speed things up.
Create a new ad account
If your restriction is not lifted and you still need to run ad campaigns, you could consider creating a new ad account in Meta Business Manager. However, this comes with serious risks.
Meta can link your new account to the restricted one through shared assets like Pages, payment methods, or user profiles. If it picks up on the connection and believes you’re trying to bypass enforcement rather than fix the original problem, it can also restrict the new account. In some cases, this can extend restrictions to other assets in your Business Manager.
Before creating a new account, address the issue that caused the first restriction. Use the new account for fully compliant campaigns and, if you can, avoid re-using creatives, audiences, or tactics that led to the previous enforcement.
Stick to Meta’s rules and hit your goals
Facebook ad account restrictions can cost you time, money, and momentum. While some fixes are straightforward, prevention is always easier than recovery. That means knowing the rules, keeping your creatives and audiences compliant, and spotting potential problems before they escalate.
Bïrch makes that proactive approach possible. By automatically tracking account quality, surfacing top- and low-performing creatives, and pausing ads that could trigger negative feedback, it helps you stay in Meta’s good graces while keeping budgets focused on what works.
