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Can you delete Azure/M365 tenant straight after cancelling subscriptions

curious7 151 Reputation points
2023-08-26T12:28:35.4433333+00:00

I would be deleting couple of tenants soon.

From what I have read Azure subscription once deleted stays in disabled state for 90 and you can only delete tenant after those 90 days.

And for M365 you can delete the subscription straight after cancelling subscription. So you don't need to wait to delete the tenant.

Is this correct and anything else to consider while deleting tenant?

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  1. JimmySalian-2011 42,071 Reputation points
    2023-08-27T10:07:06.18+00:00

    Hi,

    No that is not correct 30 days is for M365 - "For a free trial, your account moves into a grace status for 30 days in most countries and regions. During this grace period, you can purchase Microsoft 365. If you decide not to buy Microsoft 365, you can either cancel your trial or let the grace period expire, and your trial account information and data is deleted.https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/compliance/assurance/assurance-data-retention-deletion-and-destruction-overview

    Also for Subscription active and cancellation is it different - if you cancel your subscription before its term end date, the subscription skips the Expired stage and moves directly into the Disabled stage, which is 90 days for most subscriptions, in most countries and regions.

    There is stage process and here it is - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/commerce/subscriptions/what-if-my-subscription-expires?view=o365-worldwide

    Hope this helps.

    JS

    ==

    Please Accept the answer if the information helped you. This will help us and others in the community as well.

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  2. Yannic Graber 591 Reputation points MVP
    2023-08-28T06:17:13.73+00:00

    JimmySalian already wrote a great summary, based on this article. Thank you for this.

    In addition to his summary, I like to mention to differ the deletion of user specific data and tenant itself. So once you canceled the last subscription, the grace period starts. For example if you delete your last Exchange Online license, the mailbox data of that user will be deleted after 30days, as the whole mailbox gets deleted. If the mailbox wasn't put on hold, also admins can't access this data anymore.

    Furthermore please be aware about the following regarding tenant deletion.
    "Data deleted Azure Active Directory is removed, if not in use by other services". This in fact means, that your tenant might not get deleted, even after all your subscriptions are canceled and 90 days past already. This is because of some free services, which are based on the tenant and still in use. As an example, Power BI free...

    So to sum it up, ultimate tenant deletion is to be marked with a big IF.

    Hope this does help in addition to JimmySalians answer.

    If this does answer your question, Please Accept this as answer to be marked as such, so others can find it more easily.

    Best Regards,
    Yannic Graber

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