WoW Character Transfer 101: How Long Does a Character Transfer Take, and What Do You Need to Know About It?

WoW character transfers typically take between 10 minutes to 24 hours to complete. The transfer process involves restrictions and consequences, such as losing tabard designs and guild affiliations. It’s best to time transfers to minimize losses, and payment through PayPal is recommended.

As an online multiplayer game that has garnered a massive following around the world, World of Warcraft continues to thrive and expand. This only makes the game more interesting for us avid fans! WoW also propelled its influence even outside the realm of gaming, as evidenced by the unlicensed WoW theme park.

But if you’ve been playing for a while, you know the effort it takes to upgrade your character so that it maintains its competitiveness. Like many players, you’ll probably want to take your existing character to new realms. That’s what a character transfer is for.

Learn more about this service as we answer your most pressing questions in the rest of this article.

What is WoW Character Transfer?

Character transfer enables you to move between different realms. This allows you to continue playing them in the ever-expanding World of Warcraft. But this isn’t the only way that a character transfer may be completed. A character may also be transferred from one account to another, something that’s usually done when you avail of WoW services.

But before you go through with a transfer, take note of the things that transpire during the process:

• You won’t be able to pursue mythic raids.
• You may have to rename the character if the name is already taken in the realm. 
• The character’s name will be saved for you in their original realm for 30 days after the transfer.
• Items disenchanted, sold, and destroyed before the transfer will not be restored.
• You lose your tabard design and guild affiliation from the character’s source realm.
• Your Ignore and Friends lists will be cleared.
• If you’re transferring from another WoW account, you can’t change the character name for 30 days.

There are even more consequences when you transfer to a Battle.net account. Below are just some of them:

• Only character-specific achievements will be transferred.
• Account-wide unlocks and mounts won’t be transferred to the new Battle.net account.
• Whether partial or completed, your Pathfinder achievement will not be transferred. But if you’ve already completed it, your character retains gained skills.
• Items in the Collections tab may be permanently lost.
• Your Honor level will not be transferred.

Given this information, we strongly advise you to time the transfer to minimize losses. For example, you may want to wait until you get your rewards from the PvP season first.

How Long Will a Transfer Take?

10 minutes to 24 hours

World of Warcraft sets the maximum time in which the character transfer can be completed at 24 hours. But in reality, the experience can vary a lot. Many transfers are completed within 10 to 15 minutes. There are also player accounts where it took weeks.

To avoid delay issues, you must be aware of the existing transfer restrictions, which we’ll discuss in the next sections. If you’re going for a paid transfer, make sure that the payment method you have on file works. PayPal usually works faster than debit or credit cards as the latter require fraud checks.

Remember that the transfer is automated by the system, not manually evaluated by a person. Therefore, your experience may be different from the average, depending on your specific circumstances.

How to Successfully Complete a Wow Character Transfer

If you’re interested in transferring a character to a different realm within your region, you only need to do the following steps:

1. Log into your character.
2. Purchase a character transfer token. This will cost $25. If you have one already, go to the in-game store to claim the token. But if you have a free token, you may use that instead. 
3. Leave your existing Company.
4. Remove or cancel existing buy or sell orders.
5. If you haven’t already, have the character located in a sanctuary.

There are existing limits to where you can do the transfer. You can’t do it in a world that’s under maintenance. If you already have a character in the world you’re transferring the character to, you also won’t be able to complete it.

Are There Existing Transfer Restrictions That You Should Know About?

One of the biggest restrictions that you need to be aware of is that you can’t transfer characters between Wow Classic, Burning Crusade Classic, and Modern WoW. You also may not transfer in the following circumstances:

• The character is going to or from a Starter Edition account.
• The source or recipient account is suspended, banned, or deleted.
• The sender has the latest expansion while the recipient does not.

There are a lot more restrictions for the three variations of WoW. You may view the rest of the restrictions in this comprehensive character restriction post from Blizzard (Updated: 1 month ago).

Some notifications:

“Processing… Your character transfer is being processed.” – This error indicates that the character has recently received another service.

Final Thoughts

World of Warcraft allows you to seek a new kind of adventure. Whether you want to join old friends in a new world or explore new terrain on your own, you’ll be able to do so easily and with little to no waiting time.

Although there’s no guarantee on what your personal experience will be, knowing more about what to expect will make you feel more at ease with the process. We hope that by giving you information on your most basic concerns, you can more confidently complete transfers on your own.