How can I move a subscription to a new tenant?

Question

Hi

I have two Azure subscriptions, one in each of two tenants. I need to move the subscription from one tenant to the other to consolidate everything under my business account.

The problem is, one tenant uses my business email as a personal account, and the other is my business email from my corporate business account.

I believe I need to invite my personal account to my business account so I can switch the directory... but it won't let me as my email already exists.

Does anyone know how I can get myself out of this mess? Am I approaching this wrong?

Thank you!

James

Answer 1

Hello James Weatherhead

To consolidate your Azure subscriptions, you'll need to transfer the subscription from one tenant to the other. Here are the general steps you can take:

1. Ensure that you have the appropriate permissions to transfer the subscription. You need to be a global administrator or a service administrator for the source subscription and the destination subscription.
2. In the Azure portal, navigate to the subscription you want to transfer.
3. Select "Change Directory" and then select the directory you want to move the subscription to.
4. You will be prompted to sign in to the destination directory.
5. After signing in, you will see a message indicating that you need to be invited to the destination directory. At this point, you need to invite the account you want to transfer the subscription to, which is likely your corporate business account.
6. If you receive an error message indicating that your email already exists, it's possible that you have already created an account in the destination directory using the same email address. In this case, you should sign in to the destination directory using the email address associated with your personal account and check whether you already have an account there.
7. If you do have an account in the destination directory, you can use that account to accept the invitation to the subscription.
8. If you don't have an account in the destination directory, you can create a new account using a different email address, and then use that account to accept the invitation to the subscription.
9. Once the invitation is accepted, you should be able to transfer the subscription to the destination directory.

Note that there are some limitations on transferring subscriptions between tenants, and some services may not be supported in the destination directory. Additionally, any resources you have in the source directory may need to be migrated to the destination directory before the transfer can be completed.

For more questions please click on the links: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/switch-azure-subscriptions-to-a-different-partner

The above link will give you detail limitations list and Azure support ticket

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Answer 2

Hello @James Weatherhead

Thank you for reaching out. Reading through the explanation you shared I assume you have same email registered as Personal as well as Work School account you would not be able to invite Account B to directory in which Account A resides. For more details about this overlap you can refer: Cleaning up the #AzureAD and Microsoft account overlap

To share a clear explanation let us take below example.

• Sub A is under Work School Account A (******@contoso.com) within directory A.
• Sub B is under your Personal Account B (******@contoso.com) within directory B.

Option A:

If you do not want to move the billing from Account B to Account A, you can follow this approach:

• Since inviting Account B to directory A, is not possible you can try to perform following workaround.
• Create a new user Account C in Directory B.
• Add this user Account C as Owner on the Subscription and Global Admin on the directory B.
• Invite this Account C to Directory A.
• Later follow the steps mentioned on following article to change directory of the subscription: How to Change your Azure Directory Tenant.

Option B:

If you would like to move the billing of the subscription from Account B to Account A, you can follow this approach:

• You can perform billing ownership transfer of your Azure subscription from Account B to Account A.
• This would make your Account A as the Account Admin as well as Service Admin/Owner on the subscription and also change the directory of the subscription to Directory A.
• You follow the steps as listed on following document to know more about billing ownership transfer: Transfer billing ownership of an MOSP Azure subscription to another account.
• If you face issues performing this you can create a Azure Support Request with Azure Subscription Management Support to help you with completing the transfer.

I hope this answer helps to resolve your issue.

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