Can no longer login to Azure Portal with Personal Account

Question

Hi,

I have built an database in Azure using a Microsoft Personal Account. Recently my debit card details changed and Microsoft have asked me to update the debit card details against my subscription. I could still connect to the database.

I am no longer able to login onto the Azure Portal to update these. When logging I am asked for my email address - it asks me whether to connect with a 'Personal' or 'School/work/Account'. Everything I have done is against my 'Personal Account' so I select this. The 'School/Work Account' was created by another organisation I am no longer with so have never used - although I do have a password for this. I enter my password for my 'Personal Account' which it accepts. It then asks me for a 6 digit MFA code. The code I have in Microsoft Authenticator for my 'Personal Account' is 8 digits. I have managed to setup my work/school account in Microsoft Authenticator which gives a 6 digit code but it wont accept either.

I am able to login to the Azure Portal with my 'Work/School' Account and use Microsoft Authenticator but the Azure account for this is empty and no subscription has ever been setup against this account as I user my 'Personal' Microsoft Account.

I have tried deleting all my accounts on Microsoft Authenticator and re-adding them but I have the same issue.

I tried following instructions in another post to logon to ' Microsoft Entra admin center' but when I try logging in with my 'Personal Account' it gives me this error message

{

  "sessionId": "717a7ddbf41f4ea981f4efeac03e510e",

  "errors": [

    {

      "errorMessage": "interaction_required: AADSTS160021: Application requested a user session which does not exist. Trace ID: 0304b5bb-64b5-41b5-9a3e-318b074f0300 Correlation ID: b42083b2-1417-463e-a683-e34fb78e553a Timestamp: 2026-03-25 13:20:23Z",

      "clientId": "c44b4083-3bb0-49c1-b47d-974e53cbdf3c",

      "scopes": [

        "74658136-14ec-4630-ad9b-26e160ff0fc6/.default"

      ]

    }

I can share all my details eg my Primary Tenant ID privately if needed to resolve this issue.

Thanks for your help,

Henry.

Answer 1

The Microsoft Authenticator profile for the personal Microsoft account is stuck and is presenting an 8‑digit code where Azure is expecting a 6‑digit code. This matches a known scenario where MFA for a personal account used as a guest in an Azure tenant must be reset by an administrator of that tenant.

To regain access to the Azure portal for the personal account, the MFA registration must be cleared from within the tenant where that personal account is a guest user:

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center with an account that has Global Administrator rights in the tenant that contains the guest user (the personal account).
2. Go to Identity → Users → All users.
3. Locate and select the affected user (the personal Microsoft account as it appears as a guest in the tenant).
4. Open Authentication methods for that user.
5. At the top of the window, select Require re‑register MFA.
6. Sign out, then sign in again to the Azure portal with the personal account. The account should now be prompted to register MFA from scratch, and a new working verification method (including the correct 6‑digit Authenticator configuration) can be set up.

If there is no access to any Global Administrator account in that tenant, an administrator of that tenant must perform these steps or open a support case with Microsoft to reset MFA for the affected user.

If the sign‑in issue is instead with the Microsoft account itself (not as a guest in a tenant), use the Microsoft account help flows to recover access and then work with the tenant admin as above. For general sign‑in issues with Microsoft accounts, see the guidance under “I’m having trouble signing into Microsoft” and “I can’t sign in to my Microsoft account” in the referenced articles.

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References:

• Reset Personal Azure MFA - Microsoft Q&A
• Customer Support Portal - Troubleshoot Microsoft Identity Platform login
• I can't sign in to my Microsoft account