Transferring a bot, channel or chat: what Telegram says
A deal around a Telegram object comes down to one thing: what exactly the platform allows to be transferred, and on what conditions. What Telegram itself has said is collected here — with a link to the document and the date on which we read it.
There are no ways here of transferring an object behind the platform's back, and there will not be. Everything below is Telegram's own standard procedure. The catalogue does not publish ways around platforms' rules, and this page is no exception.
There is no money side here. No commissions, no sums, no settlement procedure: those are the terms of a particular deal, not a fact about the platform.
A bot
The platform describes transferring a bot outright.
Verbatim: «You can transfer ownership of your bot to another user. To do this, send /mybots, select your bot, then transfer ownership.» Our translation: to transfer a bot to another user, send /mybots, select your bot, then choose «transfer ownership».
A condition on the recipient. Verbatim: «You can only transfer a bot to users who have interacted with it at least once.» Our translation: you can transfer a bot only to users who have interacted with it at least once. This is checked before the deal: the recipient has to write to the bot first.
The transfer is irreversible, and that is the platform's word, not ours. Verbatim: «Transferring ownership will give full control of the bot to another user – they will be able to access the bot's messages and even delete it. The transfer is permanent, so please consider it carefully.» Our translation: transferring ownership gives another user full control of the bot — they will be able to read the bot's messages and even delete it; the transfer is permanent, so consider it carefully.
source, checked 2026-08-11
A channel and a supergroup
No separate article on transferring a channel was found in Telegram's user help: the general FAQ and the channels FAQ were read in full, and the sections on administrators' rights do not mention transfer. This is the absence of an article, not the absence of the capability — the capability itself is described in the protocol documentation.
The method is called channels.editCreator, and its description reads, verbatim: «Transfer channel ownership». It takes the channel, the new owner and the «2FA password of account».
The conditions are stated in the method's list of errors. All of them are checked before the deal, not at the moment of transfer:
| condition | verbatim |
|---|---|
| two-factor authentication is on | «PASSWORD_MISSING: You must enable 2FA before executing this operation» |
| the password was changed at least 24 hours ago | «PASSWORD_TOO_FRESH_%d: The password was modified less than 24 hours ago» |
| this session was signed in at least 24 hours ago | «SESSION_TOO_FRESH_%d: This session was created less than 24 hours ago» |
| the recipient is a mutual contact | «USER_NOT_MUTUAL_CONTACT: The provided user is not a mutual contact» |
| the sender is an administrator of the chat | «CHAT_ADMIN_REQUIRED: You must be an admin in this chat to do this» |
The two 24-hour waits mean that preparation takes time: turning on two-factor authentication immediately before the transfer will not work.
source, checked 2026-08-11
An ordinary group
About ordinary groups the help says one sentence. Verbatim: «If you are the owner and want to leave the group, pick a new owner at the same time, so the group keeps running.» Our translation: if you are the owner and want to leave the group, pick a new owner at the same time so that the group keeps running.
The platform does not describe the steps or the conditions here — it only names the capability. That is why the record is marked as partial.
source, checked 2026-08-11
What Telegram does not say
About undoing a transfer that has happened. The platform describes no way to undo one, neither for a bot nor for a channel. About a bot it says the plain opposite: «The transfer is permanent».
That means the order of the steps matters more than any verbal agreement: once the button is pressed, Telegram offers no way of getting the object back.
What to check before the transfer
The list is derived from the conditions above, not from general reasoning. Every item rests on a row with a source.
- The recipient has interacted with the bot at least once — otherwise the transfer of a bot will not go through at all.
- The sender has two-factor authentication on, and the password was set at least 24 hours ago — for a channel and a supergroup.
- The current session was signed in at least 24 hours ago — the same condition, but about the session rather than the password.
- The parties are mutual contacts: each has added the other.
- The sender is an administrator of that chat.
What this page does not say
- What it costs. Commissions, sums and settlement are the terms of a deal, not a fact about the platform.
- Whether it is safe. We give the platform's rules; everyone assesses the risk for themselves.
- How to get around a condition. Two-factor authentication, the waiting periods and mutual contact are Telegram's requirements; we show them, we do not get around them.
- What to do on other platforms. Many platforms forbid transferring accounts outright — Ppomppu, for instance, forbids both agency work and renting accounts. Those prohibitions are collected in the platforms' cards, and this page does not cancel them.
On method. Every row is a Telegram document with a link and a check date. The robots.txt of both hosts was read first: telegram.org and core.telegram.org both return 404, so the file does not exist and there are no prohibitions. Nothing has been retold from memory: until 11 August 2026 the database held not a single fact about transferring rights, and a page written without sources would have been invention.
See also: the Telegram card · automation · sources and method