Agent Down – How to Appeal a Valorant Ban, Including HWID Bans

The grounds Riot Games relies on

Riot Games enforces its Terms of Service and the Community Pact in Valorant, and its guide Be on Your Best Behavior (checked on 26 October 2026) describes the offences that lead to penalties. First, unsportsmanlike conduct, i.e. abusive or discriminatory language, throwing, provocation and inappropriate names, can lead to communication bans and to temporary or permanent game bans. Second, going AFK, queue dodging and friendly fire are detected by dedicated systems and penalised on a scale from a warning to a Valorant game ban of "7 days–permanent", depending on the player's history. Third, cheating, boosting on another player's account and "bussing", i.e. queuing with cheaters, are bannable offences in themselves.

Cheating is policed by Riot Vanguard, Riot's own security software, which runs with a kernel-mode driver. The heaviest penalty is the hardware ID (HWID) ban, which Riot imposes, inter alia, when a player is flagged for third-party scripting or cheating tools. Such a ban covers the physical components of the computer rather than a single account, and any login attempt then ends in error VAN 152.

Where the appeal goes

Appeals go to Riot's player support by ticket, since the Terms of Service state that a player who believes Riot made a mistake should contact player support with details, and that Riot will review the case. For an HWID ban, Riot's article on HWID bans describes a request for re-evaluation through player support, with a separate ticket for each affected account.

One trap concerns error messages, as an error reading VAN: RESTRICTION, with or without a number, is not a ban. According to Riot's article on that error, it means that Vanguard requires a Windows update or a security setting, such as TPM 2.0, Secure Boot or Memory Integrity, before the game launches. Hence, it is solved on the PC and not by an appeal, whereas VAN 152 signals an HWID ban.

What the appeal should contain

A Valorant appeal should name the Riot ID, the date, the exact penalty or error code and the match in question. For a conduct or AFK penalty, it should engage with what was said or done in that match, although Riot, by its own account, weighs the sum of a player's history rather than a single violation. For a cheating ban, it should list the software and hardware in use at the time and explain why none of it gave an unfair advantage.

For an HWID ban, the device history arguably matters as much as the account history, because the ban attaches to the components of the computer. A PC or parts bought second-hand, repairs and other users of the machine, therefore, belong in the appeal, with receipts where they exist. Riot's Terms of Service prohibit sharing an account or login credentials, so a ban earned by a booster or a friend will hardly be lifted; a takeover, by contrast, should be documented with an account recovery request.

After the decision

Riot reviews the case and then decides; for HWID bans, its article describes a final call on whether to lift or extend the ban and stresses that a lift is possible but never guaranteed. An HWID ban imposed for a verifiable threat of harm will not be reconsidered. A second ticket, therefore, makes sense only with new facts, e.g. evidence of a takeover or of the device history that was not available at first.

Ban evasion is detected at the hardware level: if another account logs in on a computer with an HWID ban, Riot bans that account for a set period, since the system assumes an attempt to circumvent the original ban. Under the Terms of Service, Riot may also terminate other accounts of a player whose account was terminated for cause. Accordingly, this guide does not describe ways around a ban.

Current enforcement

The Valorant appeal page sets out the steps in short form, and the Valorant ban-wave monitor records whether Riot is currently running a wider enforcement wave.

Frequently asked questions