Your LinkedIn account is restricted. Here is what to do.
LinkedIn has its own process for this, and it works. This page walks you through it in the order that gives you the best chance, and is honest about the parts nobody outside LinkedIn can promise.
The first hour
What you do now matters more than anything else on this page. Two of the three most common mistakes happen in the first hour, and both of them make the account harder to recover.
Do
- Read the notice on LinkedIn itself. It is the only place that says what they actually found.
- Check the inbox for the address on the account, including spam.
- Have a government ID ready before you start, so you are not hunting for a passport halfway through.
Do not
- ✕Create a second account. Duplicate accounts are themselves against the User Agreement, so it puts the account you want back at more risk, not less.
- ✕Send the same appeal repeatedly. It does not move you up a queue.
- ✕Pay anyone who promises to have it reinstated. Nobody outside LinkedIn can do that.
Which kind of restriction
LinkedIn groups restrictions into four kinds: content, profile, identity, and automated tools. Most are temporary. LinkedIn says certain serious violations can lead to a permanent restriction after a single incident.
Temporary
The usual case. Identity verification alone often clears it, because a large share of these are automated flags waiting for a human signal that a real person owns the account. Start at step 1 below.
Permanent
Harder, and worth being realistic about. You can still ask LinkedIn to revisit the decision, and the same steps apply. Read the section near the end of this page as well.
If the notice does not say which kind it is, work through this page as though it were temporary. That is the more common case and nothing in the process differs.
Verify your identity
This is the single highest-value thing you can do, and it is the step LinkedIn itself points to first. Sign in to LinkedIn and follow the on-screen prompts. Verification is handled by Persona, LinkedIn's identity provider.
Sign in and follow the prompts
Do it from your normal device and your normal internet connection. A familiar device and location is one more signal that the account is yours.
Use a government ID
A passport, driver's licence, or national ID card. Library and student cards are not accepted, and the accepted list varies by country.
Photograph it properly
Flat surface, good light, no flash glare, all four corners in frame, nothing covering the text. A rejected photo costs you a day for no reason.
Make the name match
The name on the ID needs to match the name on the profile. If your profile uses a shortened name, a maiden name, or an English form of your name, that mismatch is worth explaining in your appeal.
In Canada, the EU and the UK you may submit a notarised Affidavit of Identity instead, if you would rather not send an ID.
On what happens to your document: LinkedIn receives only the verification result, your name, birth year, location, the ID type and issuer, and a redacted copy showing just your name and photo. LinkedIn states the data is generally deleted within 14 days of submission.
LinkedIn's identity verification instructionsAsk LinkedIn to look again
If verification does not restore access, sign in and follow the on-screen prompts to ask LinkedIn to revisit the decision. They review it and tell you the outcome. Use the form in the restriction notice rather than a general contact form: it is the route that reaches the team handling your case.
Be short. A person is reading it. Six sentences that are easy to act on beat three paragraphs of frustration.
Be specific about who you are. Your role, your industry, what you actually use the account for. You are answering the real question behind the flag, which is whether a genuine professional is behind this profile.
Say you have verified your identity. It connects your appeal to the verification you already completed.
Ask what the activity was. A direct, calm question is more likely to get a useful answer than a denial of something you have not been told.
Do not argue the policy. The reviewer decides whether to reopen an account, not whether a rule is fair.
Do not guess at the cause in your own words. Confessing to something you were never accused of gives a reviewer a reason to say no.
A starting point
Hello, My account was restricted on [DATE]. I am asking you to review that decision. I have completed identity verification through Persona using my [passport / driver's licence / national ID card], which should confirm that this account belongs to me and that the name and photo on the profile are genuinely mine. This account is my professional identity. I use it to [one sentence: what you actually use LinkedIn for - your role, your industry, who you talk to]. I have read the Professional Community Policies and the User Agreement. If something I did fell outside them, I would genuinely like to know which activity it was, so that I do not repeat it. I would be grateful if you would take another look. Thank you, [YOUR FULL NAME] [THE EMAIL ADDRESS ON THE ACCOUNT] [YOUR PROFILE URL]
Rewrite it in your own voice before sending. A template that arrives word-for-word from many accounts stops reading like a person.
What to expect, and what nobody can promise
LinkedIn does not publish a review time, and it does not publish a limit on how many times you can ask for a review. Any specific number you read elsewhere, such as "three appeals" or "48 hours", is somebody's experience, not a policy. We are not going to repeat it here as though it were a rule.
What is generally true: identity verification tends to resolve much faster than a written appeal, because a large part of it is automated. A written appeal goes to a person and takes as long as the queue takes. Silence for several days is normal and is not a decision.
If you have had no answer for a couple of weeks, one polite follow-up on the same case is reasonable. Opening a new case each time splits your history across several threads and tends to slow things down.
If the restriction is permanent
You can still ask LinkedIn to revisit it, and the steps above are still the right ones. But it is worth planning for both outcomes rather than only the one you want.
- Export anything you still have access to before you lose it.
- Your contacts exist outside LinkedIn as well. Email addresses and phone numbers you have already collected in LinkedMinds stay in your account here.
- Do not open a replacement account while an appeal is open. It is a separate violation and it can end the appeal you are waiting on.
Please read this part
These are best practices, not guarantees. Whether an account comes back depends on the account itself: its age, its history, what LinkedIn believes happened, and the judgement of the person reviewing it. Two accounts in what looks like the same situation can get different answers, and we have no visibility into and no influence over LinkedIn's decision.
Everything described here as LinkedIn's process comes from LinkedIn's own help pages, linked above. Where LinkedIn publishes nothing, we have said so rather than filling the gap. If you find that their process has changed, please tell us at support@linkedminds.in and we will correct this page.
LinkedMinds is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by LinkedIn or Microsoft.