Can you use two ChatGPT accounts with Codex? The rules

Yes, you can have multiple ChatGPT accounts for Codex. OpenAI's own help center says "You can create additional accounts" and names "different billing or subscription plans" as a reason to keep a second one. What its Terms of Use forbid is sharing your credentials, making your account available to anyone else, and circumventing rate limits or restrictions.

We make a tool that switches Codex between ChatGPT accounts, so we read these documents closely. We quote OpenAI's own pages below and link each one. We read it all on 24 October 2026. It's our reading, not legal advice, and we don't guess at how OpenAI enforces any of it.

What OpenAI's terms say about multiple ChatGPT accounts#

A personal ChatGPT plan (Free, Go, Plus or Pro) is covered by OpenAI's Terms of Use. The version we read is effective 1 January 2026; people in the EEA, Switzerland and the UK get their own version, with the same sentence on credentials and the same rate-limit rule, worded as "circumventing any rate limits or restrictions". Business, Enterprise and the API fall under a different document, covered further down.

Sharing a login with anyone: no#

From "Registration and access":

You may not share your account credentials or make your account available to anyone else and are responsible for all activities that occur under your account.

So a Plus plan split between two developers, a Pro login passed around a team, or a borrowed ~/.codex/auth.json are all out. OpenAI's Codex docs say the same about that file in practical terms: treat it "like a password: it contains access tokens. Don't commit it, paste it into tickets, or share it in chat" (Codex authentication).

Holding more than one: OpenAI says you can#

The Terms of Use don't give a number of accounts per person, and we found no sentence about opening a second one. The help center does address it. Using multiple accounts with account switching says:

You can create additional accounts, but the switcher supports a maximum of 2 signed-in accounts per session.

Its answer to "When should I use a second account?" lists, among other reasons, "Different billing or subscription plans" and "Clear separation between work and personal chats". The switcher it describes is for ChatGPT on the web; the same page says it "is not yet supported in Codex desktop or the native ChatGPT mobile apps."

The rate-limit line#

The terms' list of what you cannot do includes:

Interfere with or disrupt our Services, including circumvent any rate limits or restrictions or bypass any protective measures or safety mitigations we put on our Services.

The terms don't say whether a second paid plan, bought because the first one ran out of Codex usage, counts as circumventing a rate limit. We won't tell you it's fine, and we won't tell you it isn't. If extra room is the reason, OpenAI sells it directly (see below), and none of those routes raises the question.

The Usage Policies don't mention accounts#

We searched the Usage Policies for accounts. The page now shows a version effective 20 November 2026, and the version before it is dated 29 October 2025. Neither one mentions holding several accounts. Both list "circumventing our safeguards" among the things you may not do, and both warn that "breaking or circumventing our rules and safeguards may mean you lose access to our systems or experience other penalties."

When OpenAI can suspend an account#

The Terms of Use let OpenAI suspend or terminate access, or delete an account, if it determines that you breached the Terms or the Usage Policies, that it must for legal reasons, or that your use "could cause risk or harm to OpenAI, our users, or anyone else". Holding two accounts is not on that list. An appeal goes through OpenAI Support.

A Business or Enterprise seat next to a personal plan#

ChatGPT Business, ChatGPT Enterprise and the API fall under the OpenAI Services Agreement, effective 1 January 2026, between OpenAI and the organisation. Two of its lines matter here. Section 3.1:

Customer will not share Account access credentials or individual login credentials between multiple users. Customer may not resell or lease access to its Account or any End User Account.

And among the restrictions in 3.3, the organisation will not let its users "(i) violate or circumvent Usage Limits or otherwise configure the Services to avoid Usage Limits." Usage Limits there include "End User, messaging, token, throughput rate, or other limits". So a seat is one person's, and the company has signed up to keep it that way.

A work seat and your own plan can sit side by side. For Business, OpenAI's help center says you can keep your personal workspace separate or merge it: "If you keep them separate, you can switch between them, but their content stays separate and any personal subscription continues until you cancel it" (workspace migration). Enterprise is stricter: the organisation's onboarding decides, and onboarding with a verified company email may require you to close your personal workspace, by merging it or by exporting and deleting its data. The switching article adds that "Business administrators cannot require you to merge or delete a Personal workspace."

In Codex itself, a ChatGPT sign-in follows that workspace's permissions and roles. On a managed machine an admin can set forced_chatgpt_workspace_id, and then, per the Codex docs, "If the active credentials don't match the configured restrictions, Codex logs the user out and exits." If Codex on a work laptop logs you out like that, your employer has restricted which sign-in it accepts.

Phone numbers and accounts#

Three OpenAI help articles cover phone numbers, each for a different check.

1. For a phone-only sign-up, Phone-only signups says you can't use a number for another phone-only sign-up while it remains associated with existing accounts. If you permanently delete a consumer account that was not disabled for a violation, "we will remove the phone number from our system after 30 days", and you can sign up with it again.
2. For the check on a first API key, "A phone number can only ever be used for phone verification up to 3 times" (article 8983031). The phone-only article says the two are separate checks.
3. Codex in the ChatGPT desktop app has its own: "You may be asked to verify your phone number when accessing Codex in the ChatGPT desktop app" (article 8983040). Landlines, VoIP, Google Voice and premium numbers aren't supported. The article gives no count of accounts per number for this check.

None of the three says a person may hold only one account.

Common setups, one by one#

If you need more Codex room, OpenAI sells it#

OpenAI's Codex pricing page names four official routes, and none of them raises a terms question. Pro costs $100, $200 or $500 a month, and the page says Pro plans "currently have no five-hour limit". On Plus and Pro you can buy credits once you hit the limit, "without needing to upgrade their existing plan." Business, Edu and Enterprise plans on flexible pricing can buy workspace credits. And "All users may also run extra local chats using an API key, with usage charged at standard API rates."

How the 5-hour and weekly windows work, and how to read yours with /status, is on our dated page on Codex usage limits.

Running two of your accounts in Codex by hand#

The Codex CLI is signed in to one account at a time. It keeps that sign-in in auth.json under CODEX_HOME (~/.codex by default) or in your system's credential store, and codex login status shows which method is active. So the manual route is codex logout and codex login again, or a separate CODEX_HOME folder per account. The exact commands, and what each way keeps or loses, are in switching accounts in Codex CLI.

How Shuriken treats your ChatGPT accounts#

In Shuriken, a ChatGPT sign-in or an API key you add is a source. Shuriken uses only the sources you add, and we ask that you add only accounts you own and are entitled to use. Don't add a colleague's login or a seat that belongs to someone else: the Terms of Use quoted above rule that out, whichever tool does it.

Source switching is what we call hot swapping: Shuriken moves your chats to another of your accounts or sources when one nears its limit, at 99% by default. A Codex chat changes account when its current turn ends, or at once if OpenAI reports a limit first; the Codex post explains why Codex moves between turns. We read OpenAI's terms for this page, but they're yours to check against your own setup, and OpenAI's decisions on enforcement are its own.

One account is fine too. Shuriken works with a single source, and the Free plan holds two.

If every account you'd add is in your name, used by you alone, and covered by terms you've read, download Shuriken and add them under Sources. The same reading for Anthropic is in the rules for multiple Claude accounts.