Transfer Records
You can transfer record ownership in Salesforce using several methods, depending on the object and how many records you want to transfer. Who can transfer a record and which permissions are required depend on whether you’re transferring a single record or multiple records in the same operation.
Required Editions
| Available in: Salesforce Classic |
Available in: Contact Manager, Group, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Developer, and Database.com Editions Accounts, Campaigns, Contacts, Contracts, Leads, and Cases aren’t available in Database.com. Contracts are available in: Performance and Developer Editions and in Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited Editions with the Sales Cloud. |
Transferring a Single Record
You can transfer a single record for any object with an Owner field.
When territory management isn’t enabled, you can transfer a single record if these conditions are met:
- You have the appropriate Edit permission.
- You’re the record owner or above the record owner in the role hierarchy. Or, you have the Modify All Data permission or the Modify All Records permission for the given object, which permits you to transfer any record, regardless of who owns the record.
- The new owner has at least the Read permission on the object.
- You have any additional permissions required for the object. See the “Additional Permission Requirements by Object” section.
Or, alternatively, if the object’s sharing setting is Public Full Access or Public Read/Write/Transfer, all users can transfer ownership of that type of record.
The Transfer Record permission is intended for transferring multiple records and doesn’t let you transfer single records unless you already meet the previously mentioned conditions.
Transferring Multiple Records
The available methods for transferring multiple records depend on the object.
| Method | Available Objects |
|---|---|
| Transfer multiple records by selecting the records from a list view and clicking Change Owner | Cases, leads, and custom objects, which can belong to either a user or a queue |
| Transfer multiple records using the Mass Transfer tool | Accounts, leads, custom objects, and additional standard objects (can vary by Salesforce org) |
To transfer multiple records, you aren’t required to be the record owner or above the record owner in the role hierarchy. Instead, these permissions are required, as well as any requirements listed in the “Additional Permission Requirements by Object” section.
| Object | Required Permissions |
|---|---|
| Accounts | Transfer Record AND Edit on accounts |
| Leads | Transfer Leads OR Transfer Record AND Edit on leads |
| Cases | Transfer Cases OR Transfer Record AND Edit on cases AND Read and Transfer Record on related accounts |
| Custom objects | Transfer Record AND Edit on the object |
| Additional standard objects as available in your Salesforce org (Mass Transfer only) | Transfer Record AND Edit on the object |
Additional Permission Requirements by Object
| Object | Additional Requirements |
|---|---|
| Campaigns | Marketing User feature license |
| Accounts with related contacts who are external users | Manage Roles OR Manage External Users |
| Cases, contacts, and opportunities | One of these conditions must be true:
|
Permission Requirements for Additional Scenarios
| Scenario | Required Permissions | Additional Requirements |
|---|---|---|
| To transfer a partner account: | Manage Users OR Manage External Users |
The new owner must also have the Manage External Users permission |
| To transfer a Customer Portal account: | None | The current owner can transfer the account to any user in your same role without special permissions. You can’t transfer a Customer Portal account to a user with a higher or lower role. You can’t transfer an account with Customer Portal users to a partner user. |
| To transfer a portal account with both Customer and Partner Portal users: | Manage Users | You can’t transfer a Customer Portal account to a user with a higher or lower role. |
| To transfer a record to an inactive user: | Update Records with Inactive Owners (API only) AND Edit on the object |
Available only for accounts, assets, cases, contacts, leads, notes, opportunities, orders, PersonAccount, ServiceContract, and custom objects. Note In
Salesforce Classic, Apex code can't be used to update lead record owners to
inactive users, even when users have the "Set Audit Fields upon Record Creation"
and "Update Records with Inactive Owners" permissions. |
| To transfer a record from an inactive user: | Update Records with Inactive Owners AND Transfer Leads OR Transfer Cases OR Transfer Record (Classic only) AND Edit on the object |
Available only for accounts, assets, cases, contacts, leads, notes, opportunities, orders, PersonAccount, ServiceContract, and custom objects. |

