Steam treats an account changing hands as a possible theft, and it is right
to: the same steps a buyer takes — new email, new password, authenticator on
a new phone — are the steps a thief takes. So the platform slows the parts of
an account that can be turned into money, for about two weeks, while leaving
everything else alone. If you know the rules before you start, the two weeks
cost you nothing. If you learn them halfway through, you restart the clock.
The hold applies to trades and the Community Market: sending items
to another account, and listing or buying items for wallet funds. Items
you trade during a hold are not lost — they sit in escrow and move at the
end of it.
The hold does not touch playing, buying games, using items in
game, Steam Cloud saves or friends. A bought account is a complete
account from the first minute; only its inventory is on a timer.
The Steam Mobile Authenticator is tied to a phone. When you move it to
yours — which you must, because the previous owner's phone must not be able
to approve anything on your account — Steam starts a fifteen-day period in
which trades and Market listings are held. The same happens if you remove
the authenticator and add it again later, so do it once, on the phone you
will keep.
Two consequences follow. First, do the authenticator move on day one,
not after you have set everything else up; every day you wait is a day added
to the end of the hold. Second, do not remove the authenticator "to reset
it" — that restarts the fifteen days.
Shorter cooldowns exist for a password reset through the recovery flow and
for a first login from a new device. They overlap with the fifteen days
rather than adding to them, as long as you do everything at the start.
- Log in and change the email first. The email is the recovery path;
until it is yours, the account is not. Full access with the original
email is what makes this possible, and it is the line on the card to
check before paying.
- Change the password in the same sitting.
- Move the Mobile Authenticator to your phone. This starts the
fifteen days — on day one, where it belongs.
- Check the trade status on the account's own pages: Steam tells you
the date the hold ends.
- Play. Nothing above stops the library, the saves or the games.
Done in this order on the first day, the account is fully yours from the
start and fully tradeable on day sixteen.
Separate from any hold, Steam divides accounts into limited and full. A
limited account is one that has never spent at least $5 on Steam —
bought a game, added wallet funds, activated a paid key. Limited accounts
cannot send friend requests, post in the community or use the Community
Market, among other restrictions, and the state lifts permanently the moment
$5 is spent.
The card shows the flag, and the fix is a five-dollar purchase after the
account is yours. The limited row is the cheap end of the shelf for a
reason: those are the freshest accounts. It is worth knowing about because
a limited account with a Market hold shows two restrictions at once, and
buyers sometimes read the pair as a ban. It is neither.
Three different things sit near each other on a card, and only one of them
is a problem:
- A trade hold is temporary, set by the authenticator move, and ends by
itself. Expected on every bought account.
- A trade or Market ban is a penalty Steam applies to the account — for
chargebacks, scams or repeated violations — and it can be permanent. The
card shows the account's trade status and the lifetime-ban flag. A
temporary trade restriction with an end date — the hold this article is
about, already running before the sale — is common on the shelf, and the
table below prints how common right now:
- A VAC or game ban is per game and permanent, applied for cheating.
It stops matchmaking in that game and nothing else. The card shows it.
A ban does not go away with time and does not go away with a new owner.
Read those lines before the price, not after.
The last habit worth forming is not turning Steam Guard off to "make
trading easier". Accounts without the Mobile Authenticator have every trade
held anyway, and they are the accounts that get taken. The authenticator on
your own phone, moved once on day one, is what makes a bought account safe
to keep — and what makes the fifteen days the only wait you will ever do.
For what the account is worth once it is yours — library, age, region — see
how much a Steam account is worth;
for accounts whose inventory is the point, the TF2 and
PUBG shelves say what the hold does and does not delay.
Counter-Strike 2
Roblox
Valorant