How to guarantee EU data and processing residency?

Question

How to guarantee EU data and processing residency?

Dario 0

Hi,

I have a few clients in EU that require their data and AI message processing to happen exclusively in the EU region. However, I found out that I can't select the appropriate deployment type in the Azure AI Foundry portal:
Screenshot 2025-09-04 at 10.11.35

Also, I can't change the resource location to anything other than East US or Canada Screenshot 2025-09-04 at 10.12.05

How can I ensure that all the data and processing stays within the EU? I tried with Sweden and Germany servers.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Best,
Dario

SRILAKSHMI C 19,735 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-09-09T13:15:02.7033333+00:00

Hi Dario,

To guarantee EU data and processing residency, you should use deployment types that are specifically designed for the EU region. For instance, if you create a DataZone deployment in an Azure AI Foundry resource located in a European Union member nation, prompts and responses may be processed within that or any other EU member nation.

If certain models, like text-embedding-3-large, do not have Data Zone enabled and are only available through global standard deployment, it indicates that they may not be available in the EU. You may need to check if there are specific subscription requirements or deployment types that allow access to these models in the EU.

For models that are only available in specific regions like East US, it may be due to compliance and infrastructure requirements rather than a subscription issue.

Thank you!
SRILAKSHMI C 19,735 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-09-11T08:07:40.02+00:00

Hi Dario,

Did you get any chance to check the above response. Thank you!

3 answers

Your answer

SRILAKSHMI C 19,735 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-09-09T13:15:02.7033333+00:00

Hi Dario,

To guarantee EU data and processing residency, you should use deployment types that are specifically designed for the EU region. For instance, if you create a DataZone deployment in an Azure AI Foundry resource located in a European Union member nation, prompts and responses may be processed within that or any other EU member nation.

If certain models, like text-embedding-3-large, do not have Data Zone enabled and are only available through global standard deployment, it indicates that they may not be available in the EU. You may need to check if there are specific subscription requirements or deployment types that allow access to these models in the EU.

For models that are only available in specific regions like East US, it may be due to compliance and infrastructure requirements rather than a subscription issue.

Thank you!
SRILAKSHMI C 19,735 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-09-11T08:07:40.02+00:00

Hi Dario,

Did you get any chance to check the above response. Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi Dario,

Thank you for reaching out with your question about ensuring EU data residency in Azure AI Foundry. This is an important requirement for clients in the EU, especially to stay compliant with GDPR and other privacy regulations.

When it comes to deployment types, there are two options. Global Standard deployments may route prompts and responses outside of the chosen region, meaning strict EU-only residency cannot be guaranteed. On the other hand, Data Zone (DZ) deployments are designed specifically to ensure that both data storage and message processing remain within the selected geography. For the EU, the supported Data Zone regions are Sweden Central and Germany West Central.

If you are only seeing East US or Canada in the Azure AI Foundry portal, this usually means that your subscription or offer type only supports Global Standard deployments. Since Global Standard does not enforce EU residency, you will not be able to meet strict compliance requirements with that setup.

To guarantee EU residency, you will need to deploy your resources in Sweden Central or Germany West Central using a Data Zone SKU (e.g., Standard_DZ). Only these Data Zone deployments provide a contractual guarantee that both data and processing remain within the EU.

Strict EU-only residency can only be guaranteed with Data Zone deployments in Sweden Central or Germany West Central. Global Standard deployments will not meet this requirement, even if the resource appears to be created in another region.

Please refer this,

I Hope this helps. please Do let me know if you have any further queries.

Thank you!

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Dario 0

Thank you for your answer. I notice that some of the models still don't have Data Zone enabled, only global standard, e.g. text-embedding-3-large. Also, some of them have Data Zone enabled, but are only avalable in East US, e.g. gpt-5-mini.

Is that simply because they are not available in EU or I need another type of subscription (and which one)?

Thanks in advance!

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