Responses API availability in EU datacenters

Question

What is the currently situation with the availability of the responses API?

The API is over a year old now and heavily used. It's Microsoft's own recommended API for OpenAI models yet still, a large portion of datacenters don't support it. It's been in "preview" for a year.

I just spent weeks waiting for quota in West Europe (because UKSouth seems to have been completely AI-abandoned), only to then find out my app won't even work with the West Europe deployment because the responses API isn't supported for no apparent reason. Of course, this is buried in the documentation so you only find out when you get the error message back from the server.

Answer 1

Hello Chris Moseley,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A and Thank you for the questions.

I completely understand the frustration here, spending time waiting on quota approval and then discovering the required API isn’t supported in that region is not a great experience.

Current status of the Responses API

• The Responses API is now generally available (GA)
• However, availability is still region-dependent in Azure OpenAI
• Not all Azure regions (even major ones) have support enabled yet

So while it’s the recommended API, rollout across regions is still in progress

What’s happening in your case

What you’re seeing is expected given current regional support:

• Your deployment and quota are fine
• The error occurs because West Europe does NOT currently support the /v1/responses endpoint

This is why Deployment succeeds, But API calls fail at runtime with “not found” / unsupported errors

European regions that support Responses API

• France Central
• Germany West Central
• Italy North
• Spain Central
• Sweden Central
• Switzerland North
• UK South

European regions that do NOT support it (yet)

• West Europe
• UK West

Why this gap exists

Azure OpenAI rolls out capabilities in phases:

Even GA features are not instantly available in all regions

Rollout depends on Backend capacity, Infrastructure readiness, Regional demand

That’s why you can:

• Get quota in a region
• Deploy models successfully
• But still not have access to specific APIs

Workarounds

1. Deploy in a supported EU region

If EU data residency is required, consider:

• Sweden Central
• Germany West Central
• France Central
• Switzerland North

These currently support the Responses API.

2. Use Global Standard / Data Zone deployments

• These can route requests to supported regions behind the scenes
• Useful if you want abstraction from regional gaps

3. Add a routing layer

Use Azure Front Door, API Management

To route traffic to regions where Responses API is available

Please refer this

https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/foundry/openai/how-to/responses?wt.mc_id=knowledgesearch_inproduct_azure-cxp-community-insider#responses-api

Standard vs. Global/Data-Zone deployments: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ai-services/openai/how-to/deployment-types#deployment-types

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

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Answer 2

Hello Chris Moseley

Responses is now part of Azure’s GA v1 API, but West Europe is not in the current European Responses rollout.
There is no Microsoft ETA for West Europe, there is Microsoft’s guidance with the model/quota pages and the feature-specific region page.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/reference/region-support

For European Azure regions, Microsoft’s current docs still show partial coverage, not universal availability. Microsoft says Foundry Agent Service is available in the same regions as the Azure OpenAI Responses API, and the current region matrix includes these Europe-region locations: France Central, Germany West Central, Italy North, Norway East, Poland Central, Spain Central, Sweden Central, Switzerland North, and UK South. West Europe is not in that current Responses/Agent region set.

West Europe specifically remains a second-class region for Azure OpenAI it has historically lagged on new features and capacity. Sweden Central is your best bet for a EU Responses API deployment right now.