Some Google Business Profile owners are reporting that one of the platform’s most basic location-management controls has disappeared: the option to mark a business as “Permanently closed.” The reports began with an observation from Japan and were subsequently reproduced by other users, although the option remains available for some accounts.
The issue was documented on September 22 by Search Engine Roundtable after Hiroko Imai reported that the control had been removed from the Google Business Profile interface she was seeing in Japan. Barry Schwartz said he could no longer see the option either, along with several related closure controls. Other users later posted screenshots showing that “Permanently closed” was still present for them.
There is no indication that Google has officially announced the removal of the feature. In fact, Google’s current Business Profile Help documentation still instructs owners to use “Permanently closed” when a location shuts down. The conflicting evidence makes a bug, account-specific interface issue, regional experiment or limited rollout more plausible than a confirmed global policy change.
The option appears to be missing only for some profiles
Imai’s initial report specifically concerned the Japanese Google Business Profile experience and asked whether owners in other languages and countries were seeing the same behavior. Schwartz subsequently reported that he could not find the control in his own interface. However, an update to the Search Engine Roundtable article noted that local SEO specialist Amy Toman could still see the option and supplied a screenshot showing it.
That inconsistency is important. If Google had deliberately eliminated the ability to mark locations permanently closed worldwide, a more uniform change would be expected. Instead, the available reports point to different interfaces or functionality being served to different profiles or users.
Google has not, based on the available reporting, confirmed whether the disappearance is intentional. Businesses should therefore avoid interpreting a missing button as evidence that the closure status itself has been deprecated.
Google’s own documentation still says the feature exists
Google’s official support page remains unusually clear. It tells business owners whose location has closed to open the Business Profile, select “Edit profile,” choose “Hours,” edit the business-hours section and then select “Permanently closed.” Google says the profile may continue to appear in Search and Maps after the change, but it will be clearly labeled as closed.
The same documentation also continues to distinguish permanent closure from temporary closure. Google recommends the temporary status for businesses closed for more than seven days, during an off-season or for an indefinite period when the business is expected to return. Short closures of seven days or less should generally be handled with special hours instead.
Google also documents bulk closure controls in Business Profile Manager for organizations managing multiple locations. Owners can select several businesses and use the Actions menu to mark them temporarily or permanently closed. That makes the apparent disappearance of the single-profile control even more likely to be an interface-level inconsistency rather than evidence that Google has abandoned closure statuses altogether.
Why “Permanently closed” is different from deleting a profile
For local businesses, marking a location permanently closed is not simply housekeeping. It communicates a specific real-world fact to customers and to Google’s local-search systems: the business existed at this location, but it no longer operates there.
Removing a Business Profile from an owner’s account is not an equivalent action. Google’s documentation on removing Business Profiles explicitly says that a business may still appear on Search and Maps after profile content and managers are removed. Google directs businesses that want to communicate a closure to mark the location permanently closed instead.
That distinction matters for local search accuracy. A closed restaurant, shop, clinic or office can retain reviews, historical references and user-generated information in Google Maps even after operations end. The permanent-closure status tells potential customers not to travel to the location while preserving the historical entity rather than pretending it never existed.
A missing closure control creates a practical local SEO problem
If an owner genuinely cannot access the documented closure option, the problem extends beyond interface inconvenience. An outdated profile can continue appearing for branded searches, Maps queries and other local discovery experiences, potentially displaying opening hours, reviews and directions for a business that is no longer operating.
For customers, that can mean wasted journeys or attempts to call a closed location. For businesses, it can create confusion during relocations, acquisitions or shutdowns. For local SEO agencies managing multiple profiles, inconsistent controls also make standard operating procedures harder to follow because the same workflow may not appear across every account.
Incorrect closure handling can be particularly messy when a company has moved rather than ceased trading. A location that has genuinely closed should not simply be treated as though the business never existed, while a business that has relocated may require an address update and careful management of duplicate or historical listings. The correct action depends on what happened in the real world.
There are still alternative routes if the button is missing
Google’s public documentation remains the first reference point, and owners should check the Hours section of the profile rather than relying on older screenshots that may show the control in a different menu. For businesses managing multiple profiles, Business Profile Manager also remains documented as supporting bulk permanent-closure actions.
Google Maps provides another mechanism for correcting inaccurate place information. Users can suggest edits to indicate that a place is closed or no longer exists, although that process is different from an owner directly managing a verified profile and may be subject to Google’s review systems.
The key point is not to substitute profile deletion for closure merely because a particular interface control appears to be absent. Removing ownership or management content does not necessarily remove the location from Google, and it can make future management more difficult.
Local SEO teams should verify the interface before changing workflows
For agencies and multi-location brands, the current reports justify a quick audit rather than a wholesale process change. Teams can check whether the “Permanently closed” and “Temporarily closed” controls are still visible across representative profiles, particularly across different countries, languages and account types.
If the option is absent, documenting the profile, account, country, language and interface state can help distinguish a broad product change from a narrower bug. Because other users still see the feature and Google continues to document it officially, there is currently no evidence that businesses should rewrite closure procedures around a permanent removal of the control.
The situation is another example of why local-search operations depend on more than rankings. Business Profile interfaces are operational infrastructure: they control whether customers see accurate hours, addresses, status information and other details that can determine whether an online search turns into a successful offline visit.
For now, this looks like an inconsistency—not a confirmed removal
The strongest evidence available on September 23 points in two directions. Search Engine Roundtable and users in Japan observed that the closure option had vanished from some profiles, while other accounts continued to display it. At the same time, Google’s official help pages still describe exactly how owners can mark a business permanently closed.
Until Google confirms a product change, the safest interpretation is that the missing control is a bug, limited test or account/listing-specific interface variation. What makes the incident worth watching is the importance of the function itself: businesses need a reliable way to tell Google that a real-world location has shut its doors.
If that control is genuinely unavailable for a subset of profiles, Google has more than a cosmetic interface problem. It has temporarily made one of the most important pieces of local business information harder for owners to correct at the source.