Microsoft 365 Developer Program - "No billing accounts found" when provisioning E5 Instant Sandbox

Question

Hello,

My team and I are trying to provision a Microsoft 365 E5 Developer sandbox through the Microsoft 365 Developer Program, but we are blocked during the Instant Sandbox setup.

Environment

• Microsoft 365 Developer Program member
• Using a corporate Microsoft Entra ID (work account)
• Region: Europe / Middle East / Africa (Ireland)

Issue

When selecting Set up E5 subscription → Instant Sandbox, the setup requires a Billing account.

However, the dropdown only shows:

No billing accounts found

which prevents us from continuing.

What we have already tried

• Clicked Create a new billing account
• Completed the account creation flow successfully ("Your account is ready")
• Returned to the sandbox setup page
• Refreshed the Billing account selector multiple times
• Signed out/in
• Tried different browsers
• Multiple colleagues reproduced the exact same issue

Additional information

The Configurable Sandbox option is greyed out for all of us, so Instant Sandbox is the only available option.

Our IT department confirmed that the Microsoft 365 Developer tenant is completely separate from our corporate Microsoft Entra tenant and advised us to contact Microsoft because there is nothing they can configure on their side.

Questions

1. Is a Billing Account now mandatory to provision an E5 Developer sandbox?
2. Should the billing account created through the "Create a new billing account" link automatically appear in the selector?
3. Does this only work with personal Microsoft accounts, or should work accounts also be supported?
4. Is this a known issue with the Microsoft 365 Developer Program?
5. Is there currently any workaround to provision an E5 Developer sandbox?

I've attached screenshots showing:

• the "No billing accounts found" error,
• the successful billing account creation page.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Hi @Auras Paltanea

Based on your description, this issue has also been reported by a number of users recently, and it appears to be related to the current Microsoft 365 Developer Program provisioning experience rather than your organization's configuration.

Regarding your questions:

1.Is a Billing Account now mandatory to provision an E5 Developer sandbox?

For some users, the current Instant Sandbox provisioning experience appears to request a billing account. However, Microsoft's published setup documentation does not list a billing account as a standard prerequisite for obtaining an E5 Developer sandbox.

2.Should the billing account created through the "Create a new billing account" link automatically appear in the selector?

If the billing account is created successfully, it should become available in the Billing account dropdown. If it continues to display "No billing accounts found" after the account has been created, that is not expected behavior and may indicate a service-side provisioning issue.

3.Does this only work with personal Microsoft accounts, or should work accounts also be supported?

Work accounts are supported. Whether a user can provision a Microsoft 365 E5 Developer subscription depends on their eligibility for the Developer Program rather than whether they are using a personal or work account.

You can read more at Microsoft 365 Developer Program FAQ | Microsoft Learn

4.Is this a known issue with the Microsoft 365 Developer Program?

There is no published known issue specifically stating that newly created billing accounts fail to appear in the provisioning wizard. However, similar provisioning issues have been observed by other users, suggesting the issue is likely related to the current provisioning experience rather than your organization's configuration.

5.Is there currently any workaround to provision an E5 Developer sandbox?

If the Configurable Sandbox option is available, using it instead of Instant Sandbox can avoid the billing account prompt. Since you indicated that the Configurable Sandbox option is disabled, there is currently no documented workaround. The best next step would be to contact the Microsoft 365 Developer Program support team so they can investigate the backend provisioning process for your account.

Please note that this is a paid support ticket, which means it requires an active support plan or a one-time support purchase. However, the benefit of using this channel is that your inquiry will be routed directly to the Microsoft Product Group responsible for the specific service or feature in question. This team includes engineers and developers who work on the product itself, so they are best positioned to provide accurate, in-depth, and authoritative answers especially for complex or edge-case scenarios that go beyond publicly available documentation or community knowledge. 

Here are some similar threads you can refer to:

• Microsoft 365 developer program's E5 subscription requires me to enter an US address - Microsoft Q&A
• Microsoft 365 Developer Program - only United States selectable when creating billing profile - Mic…

I hope this helps clarify the current behavior.

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