Kick and ban Valheim players

You can remove a player from your Valheim server for a while with a kick, or keep them out for good with a ban. They work through two different doors. Bans are managed from your server's Players tab. A kick is a command typed in the game by a server admin, because the panel has no kick button for Valheim.

Checked against Valheim 1.0.20 (patch of 15 October 2026) and Iron Gate's own dedicated server guide, October 2026.

Ban a player from the Players tab

1. Open the Players tab. The Online list shows who is on right now.
2. Click Ban beside the player's name. The button shows only once the panel has their ID. How to find a player's Valheim ID explains why one might be missing.
3. A confirm box titled with their name, such as Ban Astrid?, opens. Click Ban player.
4. Restart the server.

The panel is clear about the timing in that confirm box: a ban means they are refused from the next time the server starts. Valheim cannot remove someone who is on right now through this list, so a restart is what puts them out. A kick, below, removes them straight away, while the ban itself only applies once the server restarts, so do both if you want them out now and kept out.

Ban someone who is not online

If the player has left, or the Ban button never showed, add the ID by hand.

1. Open the Players tab and choose Banned.
2. Paste their ID into the Paste an ID box and click Add.
3. Restart the server.

The tab title shows the count, for example Banned (3), and each row shows the name beside the ID when the player joined within the last hour.

Unban a player

Open Banned, click the X at the end of their row and restart the server. The same list is a plain text file, .config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/bannedlist.txt, in the File Manager. Valheim writes a // comment at the top, then one ID per line.

Kick a player in the game

A kick is an admin console command, so you must be on the Admins list first (Add admins to your Valheim server).

1. Join the server and press F5 to open the console. Valheim admin and dev commands covers getting it to open.
2. Type kick PLAYERNAME and press enter, using the player's character name. Iron Gate's guide lists the command, and the wiki notes it also accepts an IP address or user ID in place of the name.

The same console has ban PLAYERNAME, unban PLAYERNAME and banned, which lists all banned players.

If it does not work

• The ban has not taken effect. The panel applies the change the next time the server starts. Restart, then check the player's row on Banned.
• The console will not open. On Steam, add -console to Valheim's launch options, as described in the commands guide.
• A banned player is back under another name. The list holds IDs, not names, so a rename does not help them. A new account would; if that is a problem, consider an allowed only list instead.