How to detach my Azure subscription from someone else's Entra ID directory?

Question

Context: For a while, I was working on a project with a friend. They had their own Azure subscription on top of an Entra ID tenant. My role in that tenant was just a user. Logging into the Azure portal would open my friend's subscription by default.

I decided to learn Azure on my own now and create my own subscription to get some hands-on practice. My new subscription is a free subscription, which I plan to transition to pay-as-you-go soon. I went through the subscription creation process, but the new subscription was automatically connected to my friend's entra id tenant!

I cannot transfer the subscription to another directory/tenant as - to my understanding - I cannot create my own tenant without an Entra ID license. My subscription, however, can't stay connected to my friend's directory - is there any way to detach it?

Answer 1

Hello @Wojciech Piechaczek,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Q&A.

Based on your description, I understand that you attempted to create a new free trial subscription to explore Azure. However, the subscription was mistakenly linked to your friend's Entra ID tenant, and now you want to detach or transfer this free trial Azure subscription to your own Entra ID tenant.

This happened because you were likely logged into your friend’s tenant with their credentials during the free trial account creation.

Since you currently don’t have a separate Entra ID directory, I recommend first creating a new Entra ID tenant. You can do this by clicking on Try for free, which will create an Entra ID tenant for you without any associated subscription.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/security/business/microsoft-entra-pricing

Once you’ve created your own Entra ID tenant, you can transfer a subscription from Tenant1 (your friend’s tenant) to Tenant2 (your new tenant). To do this you would need to make sure that Global Administrator of Tenant1 is added as owner to the subscription and add that user to Tenant2 as a guest user. After adding the guest user, you would need to assign the user with Global Administrator role in Tenant2 as well.

• You can refer to the following documentation for detailed steps: to transfer an Azure subscription to a different Microsoft Entra directory - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/role-based-access-control/transfer-subscription
• If you wish to retain the current billing ownership, follow the steps in Associate or add an Azure subscription to your Azure Active Directory tenant.
• If you need to transfer both the subscription and billing ownership, follow the steps in Transfer billing ownership of an Azure subscription to another account. To transfer the subscription to a different directory, you must check the Subscription Azure AD tenant check box.

Alternatively, to simplify the process, you can create a new Azure Free Account using your personal Microsoft Account (MSA). Ensure you use a different mobile number, email address, and credit card to sign up. For best results, use an InPrivate or incognito browser window to avoid being logged into your friend’s directory account.

I hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to reach out if you have any further questions.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Thanks,
Raja Pothuraju.

Answer 2

You can create a new Microsoft Entra ID tenant. Sign in to the Azure portal with your existing account. and navigate to entra ID and create your tenant.

Once this is done proceed to add the subscription to the tenant using the steps here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/fundamentals/how-subscriptions-associated-directory?source=recommendations

You can mark it 'Accept Answer' and 'Upvote' if this helped you

Regards,

Abiola