Microsoft 365 Developer Program - "No billing accounts found"

Question

Hello all,

I know a lot of people have been struggling with the issue of creating a Developer tenant where even after creating a billing account you got rejected with error "No billing accounts found".

A few months back a verification was added - provide the valid card to creating Developer E5 tenant. This is only for verification and no charges are made to your card. What is not mentioned and a bit poorly communicated is that you actually need to have an active Azure plan - meaning you need an Azure subscription as well.

So after creating the billing account, go to the following:

1. Azure portal → Subscriptions → Add.
2. In the creation blade, for Billing account pick the MCA account, billing profile and invoice section. They are most likelly to be already pre-populated but feel free to select which one you'd like.
3. Under Plan / offer -> choose Microsoft Azure Plan.
4. Create it. Once that succeeds, the Azure plan exists on the profile, and the Developer Program lookup should start seeing a valid billing profile.

Important I might add for myself:

• Name the subscription so it's purpose can be easily identified. Remember these subscription might be accessed by any Global Admin in the tenant. I suggest naming the subscription like "Developer Tenant "Your Name" - DO NOT USE".
• The "DO NOT USE" part is for me mostly but also for other Global Admins. The subscription is active and can be used to run any resource.
• As a failsafe, add a budget alert
• We are also considering to create some policies to prevent creation of anything or even automation to prevent anyone granting RBAC access or get notified when anyone.

Hope this helps.

Answer 1

Yes. For Microsoft 365 Developer Program sandbox setup, a billing account alone is not enough.

A billing account appears in the Billing account dropdown only when all of these are true:

1. The agreement type is Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA).
2. The billing account status is Active.
3. The billing profile has at least one active invoice section.
4. There is at least one active Azure subscription created under that billing profile and invoice section.
5. That Azure subscription uses an Azure plan.

If the billing account does not have an active Azure subscription, the supported fix is to create a Microsoft Customer Agreement subscription under the intended billing profile and invoice section, with an Azure plan, and then retry sandbox setup.

Additional checks that can block the billing account from appearing:

• The signed-in account must have View Asset and Add Asset (Write) permissions on at least one invoice section.
• Typical roles that provide those permissions are:
  • Invoice Section Owner
  • Invoice Section Contributor
  • Billing Account Owner
  • Billing Profile Owner
• Billing Account Reader alone is not sufficient.
• If a spending limit is enabled on the Azure subscription, it must be removed before retrying sandbox setup.

After the Azure subscription is active or permissions were recently granted:

1. Return to the Developer Program billing configuration page.
2. Select the refresh icon next to Billing account.
3. If the account still does not appear, sign out of all Microsoft accounts, close the browser, sign in again with the authorized account, and retry.

Important:

• The billing account requirement for Microsoft 365 E5 developer sandbox setup cannot be bypassed.
• Creating the Azure subscription, selecting an Azure plan, or removing a spending limit does not by itself create charges for the developer sandbox. Charges occur only if paid Azure resources or other paid products are intentionally purchased.
• If billing is centrally managed, the correct next step is to work with the organization’s billing administrator rather than creating duplicate billing accounts.

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• Microsoft 365 Developer Program FAQ
• Microsoft 365 Developer Program FAQ
• Set up a Microsoft 365 developer sandbox subscription
• Set up a Microsoft 365 developer sandbox subscription
• Microsoft 365 Developer Program FAQ