Facebook ad account
restricted? What to do.

“Restricted” and “disabled” are used loosely, but they describe a few different situations. Your ad account can be disabled, so no ads in it can run. Your personal profile can have advertising restricted, so you cannot run ads anywhere, even in an account you manage for someone else. Your business portfolio can be restricted, which affects everything inside it. And sometimes only an individual ad is rejected while the account is fine.

The first job is to find out which one you are dealing with, because the fix is different for each. A rejected ad is an everyday event and is usually fixed by editing the ad. A disabled account or a restricted profile is more serious and needs a review.

For a Malta business that relies on Facebook and Instagram for bookings, even a few days without ads hurts. That is why it pays to handle it calmly and in the right order rather than trying several things at once.

Ads get rejected, and accounts restricted, when Meta decides an ad breaks its Advertising Standards. Common triggers for small businesses are claims that sound too good to be true, before-and-after images for treatments, wording that points at personal attributes such as “Are you overweight?”, health or weight-loss promises, financial claims, and landing pages that do not match the ad. Ads for property, jobs and credit must also be marked as special ad categories, which in the EU removes age, gender and postcode targeting.

For a single rejected ad, edit it to remove the problem and resubmit, or request a review if you believe Meta got it wrong. For an account restricted because of repeated policy issues, look through every rejected ad, delete or fix the ones that break the rules, and only then request a review of the account.

Clinics, aesthetics businesses and anyone selling supplements or financial products in Malta should be especially careful, because these are the areas where Meta’s automated checks are strictest. Plain, factual wording and real photos are the safest choice.

Meta also restricts accounts when it sees signs of a takeover: a login from an unusual place, a new admin added suddenly, a change of payment method followed by large spending, or ads that have nothing to do with your business. Sometimes the account really was hacked; sometimes a legitimate change simply looked suspicious.

If you see ads, admins or charges you do not recognise, act fast. Secure your Facebook login with a new password and two-factor authentication, remove unknown people from your business portfolio and ad account, remove unknown payment methods, and tell your bank about any unauthorised charges. Then follow the steps Meta shows in Account Quality to confirm your identity, which may include an ID check or a video selfie.

Prevent it next time by giving every person who works on your ads their own login with the lowest access they need, rather than sharing one password, and by turning on two-factor authentication for everyone with admin access.

Request the review from Account Quality, on the restricted item. Write a short, factual explanation: what your business does, that you have read the policy, what you changed and that you will follow the rules. If the restriction followed a hack, say what happened and what you have done to secure the account. Attach documents if Meta asks for them, such as a business registration or ID.

Request it once and then wait. Sending many requests does not speed things up, and Meta may only allow one review per decision. Reviews can take anything from a day to a few weeks. Keep your screenshots and the date of the request in case you need to contact Meta support later.

If the review is rejected, Meta’s decision may be final for that asset. At that point the right step depends on the reason and on what Meta allows, so it is worth getting advice before doing anything else.

Most restrictions are avoidable. Keep the ad account, Page and Instagram account in a business portfolio owned by your business, not by a freelancer’s personal profile. Verify your business in Meta’s settings when you are asked. Keep payment details up to date, with a backup card. Give people their own access instead of sharing logins. And read the special ad category rules before advertising property, jobs or credit.

Write ads the way you would explain your service to a customer face to face: what you do, what it costs or how to get a price, and how to book. Avoid promises you could not back up in writing. The ads that stay out of trouble are usually the same ones that build trust with customers.