How to transfer a license to Office Home 2024

Question

I purchased a license to Office Home 2024, and gave it to my sister - who installed it on her computer. This happened just a few days ago. Then I decided that I should have kept the 2024 version myself, and transfer my personal Office 2019 version to her instead. She has already uninstalled the Office Home 2024 version, but Microsoft won't let me install it on my computer. Is there an easy solution for this?

Answer 1

Office Home 2024 is a one-time purchase license that is tied to a single computer and to the Microsoft account it was redeemed with. Simply uninstalling it from your sister’s computer does not free the license for use on another device or another account.

For one-time purchase Office products (Home & Business, Home & Student, Professional), the transfer rules are:

• They can be installed on only 1 PC or Mac at a time.
• Office 2021/2019/2016 can be transferred to another computer that belongs to the same owner, but not more than once every 90 days, and only if the Software License Terms allow it.
• When transferred to a different computer, Office must be activated again (often by phone) and then uninstalled from the original computer.
• For transferring ownership to another person in the EEA, this must be done via Microsoft customer support and the entitlement is moved between Microsoft accounts.

In this scenario:

1. The Office Home 2024 license is associated with the Microsoft account used when it was redeemed and installed on your sister’s PC.
2. Uninstalling it from her PC does not move the license to your account.
3. To use that Office Home 2024 license on your own PC, it must remain associated with the same Microsoft account that owns it. That account would need to:
   • Sign in at the Microsoft dashboard Services page (the account that redeemed Office Home 2024).
   • Confirm that “Microsoft Office Home and Business 2024” (or similar) appears under “Products you’ve purchased”.
   • Install and activate Office on your PC while signed in with that same Microsoft account.

If the goal is to swap licenses (give her your Office 2019 and take back Office Home 2024 under your own account), there is no “easy” self-service way to reassign a one-time purchase license from one Microsoft account to another. The license remains bound to the original account, and transferring ownership to a different person/account is only explicitly supported (via support) for certain regions and versions as described in the transfer article.

Practically, the straightforward options are:

• Use Office Home 2024 only with the Microsoft account that currently owns it (even if that means using that account on your PC).
• Keep Office 2019 on your own account and leave Office Home 2024 with your sister’s account.
• For ownership transfer in supported regions (EEA), contact Microsoft customer support as described in the transfer article to see if they can move the entitlement between accounts.

---

References:

• Transfer your Office license to another device or another person
• Activate Office after reinstalling or installing on a different device
• Switch to Office Home and Business 2024