[2020] Free Character Transfers Now Available For Some Realms

With the launch of Shadowlands, great numbers of players have left Azeroth for the afterlife, dramatically increasing player populations on every realm. For a small number of realms, demand has been overwhelming, and we’ve been working around the clock to address issues on those realms and make the game available to the maximum number of players.

Today, we’ve enabled the Free Character Transfer service for players who have characters on high population realms that are experiencing consistent, extended queues. If this service is available on your realm, you’ll access it in the Services section of the Shop on your character selection screen for that realm.

Please note:

• You cannot select a destination realm that also has a high population.
• Realm to realm character transfers take time to complete, and the duration is higher when more players are using the service.
• You cannot log in to your character until the migration has completed.
• You cannot cancel a migration in progress.
• Blizzard Customer Support cannot cancel a migration or speed up the migration process.
• Character migrations are irreversible.
• The free service may be disabled at any time, as necessary.

We strongly suggest that any players planning to use a Free Character Transfer do so as soon as possible.

Thank you very much!

We’ve opened the Free Character Transfer service to players on some realms in this region. Free Character Transfers are now available:

Please note:

• You cannot transfer a character who
  • is the leader of a guild.
  • has items up for auction.
  • has in-game mail messages.
• You may have to change the character’s name after the transfer.
• You cannot transfer a character to a PvP realm where you already have a character of the opposite faction.
• The transfer of a character is a final decision once initiated, and cannot be undone. Blizzard Customer Service cannot adjust or reverse the character transfer process.

During times when servers are very busy, free character transfers can take up to several hours.

As always, we will monitor the number of characters moved and the populations on the realms above and close free transfers if necessary. We encourage players who wish to move to do so as soon as possible, as this service may be closed without notice.

We’ll update this thread with any planned changes or closures as soon as they are finalized.

Thank you!

Yes, so long as they aren’t restricted by something else like mail or auctions or being a guild leader.

Another restriction that sometimes hinders a free character move is having the maximum number of allowed characters on the destination realm. That’s fairly rare.

Update June 11 5:00 p.m. PDT

In this region, all Free Character Transfers will be closed at 11:00 a.m. PDT (2:00 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, June 15.

If you’ve been planning to make use of the Free Character Transfer service, please do so as soon as possible.

Thank you!