Meta Business Manager
for Malta businesses.

Meta has renamed its business tools several times, which is why so many owners in Malta are confused about what they have. Business Manager was the old name for the place where a business owns its Facebook and Instagram assets. Today the same thing is called a business portfolio, and you open it through Meta Business Suite at business.facebook.com. The settings that used to be in Business Manager now sit under Settings in Business Suite. Ads Manager is the separate tool where the ads themselves are built.

The portfolio matters because of ownership. A Facebook Page or ad account that lives inside your business portfolio belongs to the business. One that was created years ago from a nephew’s or a freelancer’s personal profile belongs, in practice, to that person. When they move abroad, change job or simply stop answering, you can lose your ad history, your Pixel data and sometimes the Page itself.

So the goal is simple: one portfolio in your business’s name, every asset inside it, and everyone else invited in with the right level of access.

Go to business.facebook.com and log in with your own Facebook profile. Open the menu under Home in the top left and choose Create a business portfolio. Enter the name of your business exactly as customers know it, because it is visible across Meta, then your name and a business email address. Meta sends a confirmation email to that address. Each person can personally create up to two business portfolios, so do not create test portfolios “just to see”.

Next, add your assets. In Settings, add your Facebook Page and connect your Instagram account. If the Page currently belongs to someone else’s portfolio, request access or ask them to transfer it, rather than creating a new Page. Then add your ad account, or create a new one inside the portfolio. When you create an ad account, choose euro as the currency and Malta as the time zone, because changing them later is not straightforward, and add your VAT number in the billing settings if you are VAT-registered.

Finally, add the people and partners who need access, which is the step most businesses get wrong.

Turn on two-factor authentication for everyone with access, and make it required in the portfolio’s security settings. Hacked personal profiles are still the main way businesses lose their Pages and ad accounts, and a stolen password alone is not enough when two-factor is on.

Keep at least two people with full control. If the only admin loses their phone or their profile is disabled, recovering a portfolio can take weeks. A family business in Mosta with the owner and one manager in full control is far safer than one where only the owner’s son has access.

Review the People and Partners lists every few months. Remove former employees, freelancers and agencies you no longer work with. If you see people or ads you do not recognise, treat it as a security issue straight away.

Business verification confirms to Meta that your portfolio belongs to a real, registered business. You do not need it to run ordinary ads, but some features ask for it, such as scaling the WhatsApp Business Platform or getting more ad accounts. Start it in the Security Centre in Business Suite and enter your legal business name, address, phone number and website exactly as they appear on official documents. Your website must load and use https.

If Meta cannot find your business in its records, it asks for documents. Accepted types include a certificate of incorporation or business registration, a government-issued business tax document such as a VAT registration certificate, a business bank statement, and a utility bill (which only proves the address and phone number, not the legal name). For a Maltese limited company, the Malta Business Registry certificate is the obvious choice; sole traders usually use their VAT certificate plus a bank statement or utility bill in the business name.

You then confirm the connection by email, phone, text, WhatsApp or domain verification, where you add a meta tag or DNS record to your website. Meta says a decision can take up to 14 working days. If you change your business details afterwards, you have to verify again.

Letting a freelancer or an agency own the ad account. Having a single admin with no backup. Sharing one Facebook login between staff. Creating a second Page because nobody can find the login for the first one. Choosing the wrong currency or time zone for the ad account. Leaving former employees with full control. And skipping two-factor authentication, which turns a simple phishing email into a lost business Page.