Microsoft 365 Developer Program FAQ

The Microsoft 365 Developer Program offers a development environment with Microsoft 365 E5-enabled sandboxes, free of charge, to eligible members. Qualifying program members get a Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription with 25 user licenses to build and test solutions. This subscription will remain active for as long as you're actively developing and deploying solutions.

Join the program to get access to the tools, documentation, training, experts, and community events that you need to build great solutions for Microsoft 365 products and technologies, including:

• Excel, Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint web add-ins
• SharePoint
• Microsoft Teams
• Microsoft Graph
• Microsoft 365 Copilot

For more information, see Join the Microsoft 365 Developer Program and Build Microsoft 365 solutions.

Every qualifying developer subscription is provisioned as an instant sandbox, which is a fully pre-configured tenant that's ready to use within minutes. It comes pre-provisioned with Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, and Office; 24 test users plus one admin; and pre-installed sample data (including Microsoft Graph user/mail/calendar data and a Teams sample data pack) that simulates an enterprise environment.

For full setup steps and what's included, see Set up a Microsoft 365 developer sandbox subscription. For details on the sample data itself, see Developer sandbox sample data.

1. Visual Studio Subscribers

If you have a Visual Studio Professional or Enterprise subscription, you qualify for a Microsoft 365 developer subscription. Your Microsoft 365 developer subscription will renew automatically as long as your Visual Studio subscription is active. To access this, go to Visual Studio | My Benefits. For more information, contact Visual Studio customer service.

For more details about joining the Microsoft 365 Developer Program with Visual Studio, see Join the Microsoft 365 Developer Program as a Visual Studio subscriber.

2. ISV Success Program or Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program (MAICPP)

Companies participating in the ISV Success Program or eligible tiers of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program (MAICPP) can request a Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription.

To check your eligibility, sign in to the Microsoft 365 Developer Program using your corporate email address. If you qualify, you'll see the option to request a Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription. To keep your subscription active, continue using it for development purposes.

Eligible MAICPP partner levels include:

• Azure Expert Managed Service Providers (MSP): Recognized for deep Azure expertise and service delivery.
• Solutions Partners: Partners who have earned a Solutions Partner designation in one or more Microsoft Cloud solution areas (e.g., Business Applications, Data & AI, Digital & App Innovation, Infrastructure, Modern Work, Security).
• Specialization Partners: Partners who have achieved advanced specializations in specific solution areas.
• Managed Partners: Partners with a dedicated Partner Development Manager (PDM) relationship.
• Microsoft Action Pack Subscribers: Organizations subscribed to the Action Pack for essential tools and resources.
• Partner Success Core Benefits Recipients: Partners receiving core benefits as part of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program.
• Partner Success Expanded Benefits Recipients: Partners receiving expanded benefits under the program.
• Partner Launch Benefits Recipients: Partners eligible for launch-related benefits.
• Legacy Gold/Silver Partners: Partners who previously held Gold or Silver competencies under the retired Microsoft Partner Network model.

For more details about MAICPP partner types, see service partner types in the Partner Center membership overview.

3. Premier or Unified Support Customers

If your company has a Premier or Unified Support contract with Microsoft, you're eligible for a Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription. The request process is managed by your support partner contact.

Microsoft support partner contacts include:

• Customer Success Account Manager (CSAM) for Premier or Unified Support customers
• Partner Development Manager (PDM) for Managed Partners
• Customer Support Engineer (CSE) for ISV Partners

To request a subscription:

1. Register for the Microsoft 365 Developer Program using your corporate email address.
2. After you register, connect with your Microsoft partner contact and request a Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription using the same email address. Your Microsoft partner contact will manage the request process.
3. Once validated, you'll receive a welcome email with instructions to activate your subscription.

4. Government cloud eligibility

The Microsoft 365 Developer Program is not offered in Microsoft's government clouds such as Microsoft 365 Government (GCC, GCC High, or DoD). Government cloud environments are designed to meet specific regulatory and compliance requirements, and some programs or features available in the commercial cloud are not supported there.

Sign up for the developer program by using one of the following account types.

• Work account (issued by an admin for business use) - Provides access to all small, medium, and enterprise business-level Microsoft cloud services, such as Azure, Microsoft Intune, or Microsoft 365. When you sign up to one of these services as an organization, a cloud-based directory is automatically provisioned in Microsoft Entra ID to represent your organization. For more information, see What is Microsoft Entra ID.
• Visual Studio ID (created for your Visual Studio Professional or Enterprise subscriptions) - We recommend that you use this option to join the developer program from within the Visual Studio Gallery to get the full benefits as a Visual Studio subscriber.
• Microsoft account (created by you for personal use) - Provides access to all consumer-oriented Microsoft products and cloud services, such as Outlook (Hotmail), Messenger, OneDrive, MSN, Xbox Live, or Microsoft 365. Signing up for an Outlook.com mailbox automatically creates a Microsoft account. After a Microsoft account is created, it can be used to access consumer-related Microsoft cloud services or Azure.

You can only have one Microsoft 365 Developer Program account associated with your phone number. If you need to set up a new Developer Program account, for example to use a different email account or account type, you must delete your existing account first. To delete your account, sign in to your dashboard and choose Delete Profile.

Note that if you delete your Developer Program account, you can only get a subscription after you have had your existing subscription for more than 60 days.

If you qualify under any of the eligibility paths above, you'll see the option to request a Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription directly from your Microsoft 365 Developer Program dashboard — look for Set up E5 subscription, which starts automated onboarding with no manual steps required. This applies to all self-service eligible members, including Visual Studio subscribers and ISV Success Program/MAICPP partners.

For Premier or Unified Support customers, access to the program is handled through their Microsoft partner contact rather than the self-service dashboard button. See Who qualifies for a Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription?

For setup steps, see Set up a Microsoft 365 developer sandbox subscription.

Starting July 2026, new eligible enterprise customers automatically receive an instant sandbox with add-on purchase capability enabled, letting you buy services like Microsoft 365 Copilot directly from your sandbox.

For setup steps, see Set up a Microsoft 365 developer sandbox subscription. To purchase a Copilot license once enabled, see Purchase Copilot licenses from your M365 Developer Program sandbox.

You can have only one Microsoft 365 developer subscription through your membership in the Developer Program. If you want a new developer subscription, see How can I get a new subscription?.

No. Microsoft employees cannot request a sandbox through the Microsoft 365 Developer Program due to internal corporate policies.

If you're a qualified program member, you're entitled to one Microsoft 365 developer subscription associated with your developer program account. If you want to get a new subscription, delete your account and set up a new one. Note that you can only get a new subscription after you've had your current subscription for more than 60 days.

Several factors can affect eligibility validation, including:

• Subscription status
• Assignment status of the subscription
• Identity verification requirements
• Regional or program-specific restrictions
• Temporary validation issues

If you believe you should qualify, verify that the subscription is active and assigned to your account, then try the validation process again.

Microsoft may require identity verification to help protect the Developer Program from abuse and ensure that benefits go to legitimate developers. Verification requirements can vary by user, region, and enrollment scenario.

Use your member ID to sign in to the Developer Program dashboard to access information about your subscription. This is the Microsoft account or Microsoft Entra-enabled email that you used to sign in when you joined the program.

Use the administrator ID that you created when you set up your developer sandbox. You can find your administrator ID on the subscription tile on the Developer Program dashboard.

If you're using your Microsoft account to sign in to the developer program, you can associate multiple email accounts with your Microsoft account and then set a specific email to be your primary account. The primary email account is the one that's associated with your developer program membership.

To change the email account that's associated with your developer program membership, use the following steps to update your primary email account:

1. Go to the Microsoft 365 Developer Program dashboard.
2. On the top right, choose your profile image.
3. Select My Microsoft Account. This opens a new tab that takes you to your general Microsoft account page.
4. On the left pane, choose Your Info.
5. In the Account Info section, choose Edit account info.
6. On the Manage how you sign in to Microsoft page, either:
   • Add an email account and choose Make primary.
   • Select Make primary next to an existing email account to make it the primary email account.

The new primary email account is now associated with your developer program membership.

We require members of the Microsoft 365 Developer Program to adhere to the Terms and conditions. In some instances, we may not allow members who violate our terms to sign in to the program.

If you don't remember the email address you used to sign in to the program, you can use your phone number to recover it. For example, to recover a Microsoft account:

• On the Sign in page, choose Sign-in options.
• On the Sign-in options page, choose Forgot my username.
• On the Recover your username page, enter the phone number that you used to join the Microsoft 365 Developer Program.
• Enter the security code that you received.
• Select the email address that you used to join the Developer Program, and choose Sign in.

The Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription has the same licensing and capabilities that a regular Microsoft 365 E5 subscription includes, except that in Exchange Online, inbound connectors for mailflow are not supported. Commerce capability in new sandboxes (issued starting July 2026) also supports purchasing select add-ons, such as Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses — see Purchase Copilot licenses from your M365 Developer Program sandbox.

The Microsoft 365 E5 Developer subscription includes the following:

• Avatars for Teams
• Immersive spaces in Teams
• Microsoft Entra ID P1
• Microsoft Entra ID P2
• Azure Advanced Threat Protection
• Azure Information Protection Premium P1
• Azure Information Protection Premium P2
• Customer Lockbox
• Exchange Online (Plan 2)
• Flow for Office 365
• Information Protection for Office 365 - Premium
• Information Protection for Office 365 - Standard
• Microsoft Entra Rights
• Microsoft Azure Multi-Factor Authentication
• Microsoft Cloud App Security
• Microsoft Forms (Plan E5)
• Microsoft Intune
• Microsoft MyAnalytics (Full)
• Microsoft Planner
• Microsoft StaffHub
• Microsoft Stream for O365 E5 SKU
• Microsoft Teams
• Mobile Device Management for Office 365
• Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium)
• Office 365 Advanced Security Management
• Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (Plan 1)
• Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (Plan 2)
• Office 365 Privileged Access Management
• Office 365 ProPlus
• Office Online
• Phone System
• Power BI Pro
• PowerApps for Office 365 Plan 3
• SharePoint Online (Plan 2)
• Skype for Business Online (Plan 2)
• Sway
• To-Do (Plan 3)
• Whiteboard (Plan 3)
• Yammer Enterprise

Limited Power Automate use rights are included with select Office 365 licenses to allow users to customize and extend Office 365 for personal productivity scenarios. For enterprise scenarios, Microsoft recommends standalone licenses.

Microsoft 365 licenses include the following Power Automate capabilities:

• Create and run automated, scheduled, and button flows.
• Access to standard connectors.
• 2,000 Power Platform requests/day. 10,000 requests/day during the transition period.

The following Power Automate capabilities aren't included:

• Access to premium connectors, except in Dataverse for Teams environments. For details, see Dataverse capabilities.
• Business process flows.
• Custom connectors.
• On-premises gateways.
• Robotic Process Automation.
• AI Builder capacity.

The Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscriptions includes a Power BI Pro license. It does not include Power BI Premium.

Your Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription includes 25 user licenses, including the administrator, for development purposes only. Using this subscription for any purpose other than application development is a violation of the license agreement. For more details about the licensing restrictions, see the terms of use.

The 25-license allocation is designed to support individual developer testing and solution validation, not production use.

Whether you can purchase additional licenses depends on your tenant's commerce configuration. Sandboxes with add-on purchase capability enabled can purchase add-ons, such as Microsoft 365 Copilot — see Purchase Copilot licenses from your M365 Developer Program sandbox.

Microsoft reserves the right to limit the storage on developer subscription licenses. Storage expectations are as follows:

• Tenant Storage Cap: Developer-only tenants are capped at 300 GB pooled storage.
• Zero Additional Storage: The Developer SKU contributes 0 GB SharePoint storage in mixed-license tenants.
• User OneDrive Limit: 10 GB per user for Developer SKU users' OneDrive storage.

Your subscription includes 25 user accounts, including one administrator account. 16 of the 24 non-admin user accounts are prepopulated for you when your sandbox is set up. You can manage the users in your subscription via the admin center.

Billing details are required during sandbox setup for identity verification only. Your Microsoft 365 E5-enabled sandbox remains free of charge. Creating a billing account does not automatically incur any charges — you will only be billed if you intentionally purchase a paid product or service. For more details, see Configure billing details in the setup guide.

Support for add-on purchases depends on whether your sandbox has commerce capability enabled. Instant sandboxes provisioned starting July 2026 for new eligible enterprise customers support purchasing eligible add-ons, such as Microsoft 365 Copilot; sandboxes without commerce capability enabled don't support the same purchasing experiences. See Do all Developer Program members get a commercially enabled sandbox?

No. An existing developer tenant that doesn't already have commerce capability can't be directly converted into a commerce-enabled tenant. If you need commerce capability, you'll need to provision a new developer tenant, subject to eligibility and availability requirements.

If your sandbox has commerce capability enabled, yes — see Purchase Copilot licenses from your M365 Developer Program sandbox for steps. Not all Developer Program tenants currently support Copilot purchases; see Do all Developer Program members get a commercially enabled sandbox?

Your subscription is good for up to 90 days, depending on your activity, and is renewable based on qualified developer activity. If you're using your subscription for development, it will be renewed regularly. You can find the expiration date, along with your subscription name, on your Microsoft 365 Developer Program dashboard.

If you're joining the program with your Visual Studio standard Professional or standard Enterprise subscription, your subscription is automatically renewed until your Visual Studio subscription expires.

Qualified members of the Microsoft 365 Developer Program are entitled to one Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription. If you qualify for a subscription, your subscription will be associated with your developer program account. You cannot transfer ownership to a different account.

In April 2019, we transitioned to a new model where your subscription can be renewed periodically every 60-90 days, depending on your activity, for as long as you're actively using it for development. We believe that this model ensures that developers who are actively developing solutions have a subscription for as long as they need one. If you're developing frequently, your subscription never expires; it is automatically extended. If you qualify for a subscription and you're developing for a short time, and your subscription expires due to inactivity and is deleted, you can set up a new one.

Because developer tenants are intended for development and testing purposes only and are short-lived by design, Microsoft may require tenants to be recreated every 90 days. Always back up your data and configurations outside the developer tenant.

If you prefer to have a subscription that is available for a longer time, we recommend that you get the Visual Studio standard Professional or standard Enterprise subscription. These programs include a free Microsoft 365 developer subscription that is good for the life of your Visual Studio subscription. To access this, go to Visual Studio | My Benefits. For more information, contact Visual Studio customer service.

We use a set of algorithms and telemetry that we get from your activity in the Microsoft 365 Developer Program and on your Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription to determine whether you are actively developing. We check these regularly to update your status and determine whether your subscription should be extended.

Your activity in the Developer Program and on your developer subscription determine whether you are actively developing and whether your subscription should be extended. Qualifying activity generally includes building, testing, or validating applications and solutions using Microsoft 365 developer technologies, for example:

• Application development using Microsoft Graph APIs
• SharePoint Framework (SPFx) development
• Teams application development and testing
• Power Platform solution development
• Automated testing and validation activities

Artificial or non-development activity may not qualify for renewal purposes.

For more information about the types of activities that we track, see the terms of use.

Not necessarily. Developer Program subscriptions are evaluated periodically and may display expiration dates in various Microsoft 365 administration experiences. If your tenant remains eligible and continues to meet renewal requirements, the subscription may be automatically renewed before the displayed expiration date. Always refer to the Developer Program dashboard for the most current renewal status.

The only way that you can extend your subscription is to engage in valid development activity. If you're not using your subscription to develop custom solutions, your subscription will expire and will eventually be deleted. Remember that developer tenants are short-lived and intended for development and testing only. Microsoft may require tenants to be recreated every 90 days, so always keep your data and configurations backed up outside of the developer tenant.

You have 30 days after your subscription expires to migrate any data. For the next 30 days, only the admin will have access to the subscription, and on day 60, the subscription and all data will be deleted. Because developer tenants are temporary and designed for development and testing purposes only, you should always maintain backups of your data and configurations outside of the developer tenant.

Your Developer Program benefits are tied to your continued eligibility. If the qualifying Visual Studio subscription associated with your membership expires, is canceled, or is no longer assigned to you, you may lose eligibility for Developer Program benefits.

Your developer tenant isn't deleted immediately — it follows the same expiration timeline as any other subscription that stops meeting renewal requirements. We recommend renewing or re-establishing eligibility before your qualifying Visual Studio subscription expires.

The same applies if you lose eligibility through a path other than Visual Studio, such as your ISV Success Program, MAICPP, or Premier/Unified Support status changing. Your tenant isn't deleted immediately; it follows the standard expiration timeline. Maintain backups of any important development assets and avoid using Developer Program tenants for production workloads, since renewal depends on continued eligibility as well as development activity.

No. Developer Program benefits are assigned to a specific developer tenant and can't currently be transferred between tenants. If you need a different tenant, a new Developer Program environment must be provisioned, subject to eligibility requirements.

When you join the Microsoft 365 Developer Program, on your My settings page, you can link your GitHub account to your developer program account. Linking your GitHub account will accrue toward the renewal of your Microsoft 365 developer sandbox subscription. You can also choose to unlink your account by going to the Accounts linked section of your My settings page.

No. The free Microsoft 365 developer subscription is only subject to the Terms and conditions and not the EUDB commitments. As part of the provisioning process, however, you have the option to choose the country/region for your subscription.

If you decide that you no longer want to participate in the Microsoft 365 Developer Program, you can end your subscription and leave the program.

1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 Developer Program.

2. Choose Delete Profile.

3. In the Delete Profile confirmation box, choose Delete.