"Domain has associated subdomains" when removing a domain from Microsoft 365

  • Article
  • Applies to:
    User and Domain Management

Problem

If you try to remove a domain from Microsoft 365, you experience one or both of the following symptoms:

  • When you try to remove the domain through the Microsoft 365 portal, you receive the following error message:

    Domain has associated subdomains.

  • When you try to remove the domain by using Windows PowerShell, you receive the following error message:

    Remove-MsolDomain : You cannot remove a domain that has subdomains. You must first delete the subdomains before you can remove this domain.
    At line:1 char:18
    +Remove-MsolDomain <<<< -DomainName <DomainName>
    +CategoryInfo : OperationStopped: (:) [Remove-MsolDomain], MicrosoftOnlineException
    +FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Online.Administration.Automation.DomainHasChildDomainException,Microsoft.Online.Administration.Automation. RemoveDomain

This issue occurs if the domain has associated subdomains.

Solution

To fix this issue, remove all subdomains that contain the domain that you're trying to delete.

For example, consider the following scenario:

  • You have two domains: www.contoso.com and contoso.com.
  • You want to remove the contoso.com domain.

In this scenario, you must also remove the http://www.contoso.com subdomain to remove the contoso.com domain.

More information

For more info, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

You get an error message when you try to remove a domain from Microsoft 365

Still need help? Go to Microsoft Community.