Deactive Admin user

alpines — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 02:54:09 GMT

Hi Community,

I have a Databricks account and workspaces that were previously setup by a user who is no longer with our company and I am attempting to remove admin access and deactive the user account. However as an Account admin user myself, when I attempt to use the API to patch the user, I get `Not allowed to activate or deactivate user` and when I attempt to remove the Account admin role I also get - `PERMISSION_DENIED: Cannot remove roles`.

Any suggestions on how to deactive this user? Are there ownerships that I need to transfer first?

Thanks

Re: Deactive Admin user

szymon_dybczak — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:16:29 GMT

Hi @alpines ,

This error typically occurs when attempting to remove the 'account owner.' The account owner is the user who originally set up the Databricks account. This entitlement is attached to a user so that there is always at least one account admin who can authenticate if all other admins are removed. You can create a support case with Databricks to request that the account ownership entitlement be transferred to another user and then remove this user.

This is also described in following place in documentation:

Manage your Databricks account | Databricks on AWS

If my answer was helpful, please consider marking it as accepted solution.

topic Re: Deactive Admin user in Administration & Architecture

Deactive Admin user

Re: Deactive Admin user