How to accept terms of service

Question

how do I accept terms of service? On my word or excel documents, a yellow banner comes up that I must accept terms of service. When I click on that banner to do so, it bumps me into my account, but does not show me where or how to accept those terms of service to clear that yellow banner off of my other documents I am working on.

Answer 1

Hello Denise Harvey,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum!

I realize that you've encountered a problem with the “Terms of service update” bar appear in Excel. I truly understand your confusion. Let me assist you further.

For Microsoft 365 Home / Personal, the terms you must accept are part of the Microsoft Services Agreement tied to your Microsoft account, not the Microsoft 365 admin center (that’s for work/business). The yellow banner is supposed to open an acceptance screen, but there is a known bug where it just drops you into your account page with no button to accept anything.

So, you have to trigger the acceptance outside Word/Excel. I suggest you:

Step 1: Open the Microsoft Services Agreement directly

• Open a browser (Edge or Chrome works best).
• Go to the Microsoft Services Agreement page.
• Sign in with the same Microsoft account email you use for Word/Excel.

If your account has pending terms, Microsoft will show an Accept / Continue prompt after sign‑in. If there is no prompt, that means Microsoft already considers the terms accepted (even if Office is still nagging). This agreement is what governs consumer Microsoft 365 Home subscriptions.

Step 2: Force Office to re-check your account

After Step 1, do this once:

• Open Word
• Go to File > Account
• Select Sign out
• Close all Office apps (Word, Excel, Outlook — all of them)
• Reopen Word and sign in again

This forces Office to re-sync your account’s agreement status. (This step is a workaround, not a published fix — but it is the only reliable way home users get the banner to clear when the prompt never appeared.)

I hope this will help with your situation. Please feel free to reach back if you have further update or more questions.

Best Regards,

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Answer 2

To accept the terms of service in Microsoft Word or Excel, you typically need to follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your Microsoft 365 account: When the yellow banner appears, click on it to be redirected to your account.
2. Look for the terms of service prompt: Once you're in your account, there should be a prompt or notification regarding the terms of service that you need to accept.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions: There should be a clear option to accept the terms of service. Make sure to read through the terms and then click on the acceptance button.
4. Restart the application: After accepting the terms, close and reopen Word or Excel to ensure that the yellow banner no longer appears.

If you are unable to find the terms of service prompt after signing in, ensure that your account is correctly set up and that you have the necessary permissions to accept the terms. If the issue persists, you may want to contact Microsoft support for further assistance.

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References:

• Terms of service update for Simplified Sign Up mode
• Terms of service update for Simplified Sign-Up mode