How to Delete a Xero Account: Keep Client Records

To close a client’s Xero account, export their records, cancel the subscription and request permanent deletion separately. Keep your own login if you still serve other clients.

Export Before You Cancel

Export the client’s records while the organisation is accessible. Xero exports come from separate areas and reports, so one spreadsheet does not contain the whole file.

Use Xero’s export instructions to collect the records that apply to the client.

1. Export the chart of accounts, contacts, invoices, bills and fixed asset list.
2. Save each year’s Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss, plus a Trial Balance covering previous periods.
3. Export Account Transactions with all needed columns, including foreign currency columns where relevant.
4. Save receivables and payables detail, bank reconciliations, asset reconciliations and inventory records where used.
5. Export lodged BAS reports and annual payroll detail. Payroll reports require payroll admin access.
6. Collect source documents separately, including receipts and bank statements. Open the files outside Xero and reconcile the closing balances to the final reports.

Keep readable copies for the client and document where they are stored. For ongoing export arrangements, the Xero backup guide explains the separate backup decision.

The ATO’s business closure record guidance requires closure records for five years. Count from preparation, obtaining the record or completing its transaction, whichever happens last.

Five years is not a universal destruction date. ASIC requires company financial records for at least seven years. Employee records generally need seven years, and some tax records need longer retention. Government closure guidance explains the continuing obligations.

Record the client’s entity type and the retention rule for each record category. Assign a person to keep the archive accessible after the business closes.

Cancel a Xero Subscription

Only the subscriber can cancel a Xero subscription. For a paid subscription, billing and access continue through a one-month notice period. Clear overdue amounts first.

For a subscription billed by Xero, use the web version and follow Xero’s cancellation procedure.

1. Open the organisation menu and select Subscription and billing.
2. Choose Cancel subscription.
3. Review the final billing date and choose the cancellation reason.
4. Select Confirm cancellation and retain the confirmation.

For a trial, open My Xero, then Subscriptions. Use the organisation’s menu to cancel and confirm. App-store subscriptions use the relevant mobile cancellation route. Cancel connected app subscriptions separately.

Read-Only Access After Cancellation

Xero has no read-only subscription plan. After the notice period, users lose access to the organisation’s data. A read-only user role does not preserve access to a cancelled subscription.

Temporary access requires reactivation within Xero’s retention period, with a subscription covering the features needed. Cancellation then carries another notice period. Export first so routine record retrieval does not depend on reactivation.

If cancellation is unavailable, check that you are the subscriber and that no overdue balance remains. Check the billing channel if the mobile and web options differ.

Delete a Xero Organisation or User Login

Organisation deletion concerns the client’s data. Login deletion concerns a person’s access across Xero. Choose the action that matches the client’s instruction.

Request Organisation Deletion

1. Confirm that the exported records open and the client has received them.
2. Cancel the subscription using the steps above.
3. Use the support option in Xero’s cancellation article to request permanent data deletion for the named organisation.
4. Keep Xero’s response with the client’s written authority.

Cancellation archives the data. It does not immediately erase it. Xero also says a cancelled organisation remains in the organisation list, so its appearance there does not prove billing continues.

Close a Personal Login

Follow Xero’s personal-data deletion instructions: remove your access to all organisations, then contact Xero support to request deletion of your user account.

Xero’s login guidance says deletion removes access across all organisations and cannot be reversed. A practitioner who only needs to leave one client must remove that client access instead.

Removing the Practice’s Access

Remove each staff member’s access after the client receives the archive and the agreed remaining work is assigned. If the client continues using Xero, agree who will hold the subscription before your practice leaves.

For access managed through Xero Partner Hub + Practice Management, follow the staff access procedure.

1. Open Clients and select the client.
2. Open Staff, select the departing staff members and choose Edit permissions.
3. Under User role, select No access for the client’s Xero organisation.
4. Select Apply and inspect the resulting permissions.

Client-record access is a separate permission. Where it must also end, select Customised permissions and No access for that record. Review all staff, including administrators, and any separately granted organisation access.

Keep a handover record naming the entities, archive recipient, files delivered and person responsible for unfinished work. Add the cancellation confirmation and access-removal record. Ask the recipient to confirm that the files open before closing the handover.