Transfer Shopify store ownership

After an ownership change, Shopify Help says users keep their store permissions

Direct answer. Shopify Help, Change or transfer ownership, says: “When you change ownership of a store in your organization, or group the store to another organization that you own, users keep their store permissions, but their organization permissions are removed.” The same sentence’s paragraph says you or the new store owner might need to review staff permissions after you change the store’s owner or organization. The page’s transfer checklist says the official transfer “removes account owner permissions from your Shopify login, so some parts of the store’s Shopify admin (such as payment and billing information) will become restricted to you.” The page opens with a plan requirement. Read that note on the live page. This guide does not name a plan. This page is not legal advice.

Staff Access Audit Guard (Shopify App Store · Write a review): “Review installed app access, granted scopes, staff access records, and ownership evidence without reading customer or order data.” The app does not transfer the store. Ownership evidence as a record of scopes and an owner is a separate page.

Related: Agentic Catalog by momiji — Crawler rules and complete product JSON-LD for shopping agents.

Free check first: App access scope reader runs in your browser and sends nothing. Paste scope text and see which access it names.

Checklist after the transfer, from that Help page

• Read the plan requirement at the top of Change or transfer ownership before you follow a path. This page does not name the plan.
• Where the page applies the Settings paths, it describes two: change ownership to an existing user through Settings > Users, or transfer ownership to someone outside the store through Settings > General.
• Users keep their store permissions. Organization permissions are removed. Review staff permissions after the owner or the organization changes.
• The transfer checklist says the official transfer removes account owner permissions from the previous login, so payment and billing information become restricted to that login.
• The same checklist says to update the store email, store phone, and business address; the notification email; custom-domain contact details; billing information, including third-party apps that store billing outside Shopify; and payout details for active payment methods.
• Only the store owner can change or transfer ownership of a store. The page says the store owner has complete access to every part of the Shopify admin. If the store is part of an organization, the organization owner also has complete access to the store, but cannot change store ownership unless they are also the store owner.

What the Help page says about permissions

Under considerations for transferring ownership, the page says: “When you change ownership of a store in your organization, or group the store to another organization that you own, users keep their store permissions, but their organization permissions are removed. You or the new store owner might need to review staff permissions after you change the store’s owner or organization.”

Under considerations for changing ownership, the page says the store owner has complete access to every part of the Shopify admin. If the store is part of an organization, the organization owner also has complete access to the store, but cannot change store ownership unless they are also the store owner. It also says only the store owner can change or transfer ownership of a store.

The two Settings paths, where the page applies them, are: for an existing user, Settings > Users, then the current store owner, then Change ownership, using an email address that is already a user; for someone outside the store, Settings > General, Transfer store, then the new owner’s email. After you initiate that outside transfer, the page says you can review its status on Settings > General, and that you can cancel it only while it is in progress. The new owner accepts from the email. Those are the steps on the Help page. Confirm them there before you click them.

Access to review after the previous owner steps back

The Help checklist for preparing a store for a transfer ends with: “Follow the steps to officially transfer ownership of the store to the new owner. This removes account owner permissions from your Shopify login, so some parts of the store’s Shopify admin (such as payment and billing information) will become restricted to you.” Earlier items on that checklist are the contact, notification, domain, billing, and payout updates listed above. Staff roles that remain are the staff permissions checklist. A collaborator is not a staff account: collaborator vs staff. An end date is a different control: staff or collaborator access end date. What a granted app scope allows is Shopify app access scopes.

What this page is not

• Not legal advice, a sale contract, or a security attestation.
• Not a named plan. The Help page has a plan requirement. Read it there.
• Not a tool that transfers ownership. The listing reviews access and ownership evidence.
• Not the collaborator request-code job. That URL is collaborator vs staff.

Related pages

• App access scope reader — paste scope text in the browser
• Shopify app ownership evidence
• Staff permissions audit checklist
• Shopify collaborator vs staff
• Staff or collaborator access end date
• Shopify app access scopes explained
• Shopify Help: Change or transfer ownership
• Staff Access Audit Guard — live App Store listing
• Shopify apps hub
• Tools

Not legal advice. Confirm Change or transfer ownership on Shopify Help, including the plan requirement at the top of that page, before you treat store permissions as unchanged. The app reviews access records. It does not transfer ownership and it does not read customer or order data.