Can't create an azure trial subscription : AADSTS160021

Question

I'm trying to test Azure before subscribing to it. I'm new to the service.

I have a personal microsoft account. Then I go to azure website : https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2227353&clcid=0x40c&l=fr-fr

and I click on try azure for free. I then enter my credentials and I'm successfully logged in into azure portal.

Problem is that it seems my "directory" has no subscription... So I try to "switch directory" by clicking on the link in the top right corner of the screen but nothing happens...

In Azure portal, whatever I do, even to fill in a support ticket, i get this error message :

AADSTS160021

{
  "sessionId": "bf55fb8b8b484a3a90b2394350087dae",
  "errors": [
    {
      "errorMessage": "interaction_required: AADSTS160021: Application requested a user session which does not exist. Trace ID: c7a3a500-18bd-4704-b2f1-ecfc13e52800 Correlation ID: 29ee69f2-ad92-4a91-b7bd-1213c3a31976 Timestamp: 2025-06-04 07:57:07Z",
      "clientId": "0a2057a8-149c-40ca-859e-98de032535fb",
      "scopes": [
        "a0e1e353-1a3e-42cf-a8ea-3a9746eec58c/.default"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

From what i could understand from other Q&As, it looks like my personal account has no azure tenant... Something like that. And to create one, i need to go to azure website and click on "try azure for free", which i did, again and again. But whatever I do, I can't get my tenant to be created, then I can't use Azure at all. Even if I try the "pay as you go model", it fails.

I also tried the following :

1. Open a inconito mode
2. Go to azure and try azure for free
3. Create a brand new microsoft account (sign up) with a new mail
4. I'm then redirected to Azure Portal, again with no "directory" or subscription or tenant (whatever you call it). And i get the same error code or message

AADSTS160021

Can you help me fix this ? I mean I can't imagine that Azure trial subscription is just not working at all...

Answer 1

Hi @Jose Ca

As this is a standard tenant without any directory associated, you cannot perform actions such as creating new users, groups, enterprise applications, and so on. To perform administrative actions, you must have administrative access to the tenant.

Solution: For this purpose, you need to create your own tenant rather than using the Microsoft Services (f8cdef31-a31e-4b4a-93e4-5f571e91255a) tenant.

To create a new tenant, open in-private/incognito browser window (just to avoid SSO), access https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/ to create a free Azure account.

When you create a new tenant, you by default become the Global Administrator of the new tenant and have full access to all the options in that tenant.

If you still want to access Entra portal using your personal Microsoft account only, you can invite that user as a guest user as mentioned here : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/external-identities/add-users-administrator#add-guest-users-to-the-directory and assign the Global Administrator role.

Once you are added to an azure tenant and you accept the invite sent to you via email, you can use https://portal.azure.com/#create/Microsoft.AzureActiveDirectory URL to create your own tenant as well.

Hope this will help.

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you have any further queries.