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Create Microsoft 365 user accounts with PowerShell

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This article applies to both Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Office 365 Enterprise.

You can use PowerShell for Microsoft 365 to efficiently create user accounts, including multiple accounts.

When you create user accounts in PowerShell, certain account properties are always required. Other properties aren't required but are important. See the following table.

Property name Required? Description
DisplayName
Yes
This is the display name that's used in Microsoft 365 services. For example, Caleb Sills.
UserPrincipalName
Yes
This is the account name that's used to sign in to Microsoft 365 services. For example, CalebS@contoso.onmicrosoft.com.
FirstName
No
LastName
No
LicenseAssignment
No
This is the licensing plan (also known as the license plan or SKU) from which an available license is assigned to the user account. The license defines the Microsoft 365 services that are available to the account. You don't have to assign a license to a user when you create the account, but the account must have a license to access Microsoft 365 services. You have 30 days to license the user account after you create it.
Password
No
If you don't specify a password, a random password is assigned to the user account, and the password is visible in the results of the command. If you specify a password, it needs to be 8 to 16 ASCII text characters of the following types: lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols.
UsageLocation
No
This is a valid ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code. For example, US for the United States, and FR for France. It's important to provide this value, because some Microsoft 365 services aren't available in certain countries. You can't assign a license to a user account unless the account has this value configured. For more information, see About license restrictions.

Note

Learn how to create user accounts by using the Microsoft 365 admin center.

For a list of additional resources, see Manage users and groups.

Use the Azure Active Directory PowerShell for Graph module

First, connect to your Microsoft 365 tenant.

After you connect, use the following syntax to create an individual account:

$PasswordProfile=New-Object -TypeName Microsoft.Open.AzureAD.Model.PasswordProfile
$PasswordProfile.Password="<user account password>"
New-AzureADUser -DisplayName "<display name>" -GivenName "<first name>" -SurName "<last name>" -UserPrincipalName <sign-in name> -UsageLocation <ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code> -MailNickName <mailbox name> -PasswordProfile $PasswordProfile -AccountEnabled $true

This example creates an account for the US user Caleb Sills:

$PasswordProfile=New-Object -TypeName Microsoft.Open.AzureAD.Model.PasswordProfile
$PasswordProfile.Password="3Rv0y1q39/chsy"
New-AzureADUser -DisplayName "Caleb Sills" -GivenName "Caleb" -SurName "Sills" -UserPrincipalName calebs@contoso.onmicrosoft.com -UsageLocation US -MailNickName calebs -PasswordProfile $PasswordProfile -AccountEnabled $true

Use the Microsoft Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell

First, connect to your Microsoft 365 tenant.

Create an individual user account

To create an individual account, use the following syntax:

New-MsolUser -DisplayName <display name> -FirstName <first name> -LastName <last name> -UserPrincipalName <sign-in name> -UsageLocation <ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code> -LicenseAssignment <licensing plan name> [-Password <Password>]

Note

PowerShell Core doesn't support the Microsoft Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell module and cmdlets that have Msol in their name. Run these cmdlets from Windows PowerShell.

To list the available licensing plan names, use this command:

Get-MsolAccountSku

This example creates an account for the US user Caleb Sills, and assigns a license from the contoso:ENTERPRISEPACK (Office 365 Enterprise E3) licensing plan.

New-MsolUser -DisplayName "Caleb Sills" -FirstName Caleb -LastName Sills -UserPrincipalName calebs@contoso.onmicrosoft.com -UsageLocation US -LicenseAssignment contoso:ENTERPRISEPACK

Create multiple user accounts

  1. Create a comma-separated value (CSV) file that contains the required user account information. For example:

    UserPrincipalName,FirstName,LastName,DisplayName,UsageLocation,AccountSkuId
ClaudeL@contoso.onmicrosoft.com,Claude,Loiselle,Claude Loiselle,US,contoso:ENTERPRISEPACK
LynneB@contoso.onmicrosoft.com,Lynne,Baxter,Lynne Baxter,US,contoso:ENTERPRISEPACK
ShawnM@contoso.onmicrosoft.com,Shawn,Melendez,Shawn Melendez,US,contoso:ENTERPRISEPACK

    Note

    The column names and their order in the first row of the CSV file are arbitrary. But make sure the order of the data in the rest of the file matches the order of the column names. And use the column names for the parameter values in the PowerShell for Microsoft 365 command.

  2. Use the following syntax:

     Import-Csv -Path <Input CSV File Path and Name> | foreach {New-MsolUser -DisplayName $_.DisplayName -FirstName $_.FirstName -LastName $_.LastName -UserPrincipalName $_.UserPrincipalName -UsageLocation $_.UsageLocation -LicenseAssignment $_.AccountSkuId [-Password $_.Password]} | Export-Csv -Path <Output CSV File Path and Name>

    This example creates user accounts from the file C:\My Documents\NewAccounts.csv and logs the results in a file named C:\My Documents\NewAccountResults.csv.

    Import-Csv -Path "C:\My Documents\NewAccounts.csv" | foreach {New-MsolUser -DisplayName $_.DisplayName -FirstName $_.FirstName -LastName $_.LastName -UserPrincipalName $_.UserPrincipalName -UsageLocation $_.UsageLocation -LicenseAssignment $_.AccountSkuId} | Export-Csv -Path "C:\My Documents\NewAccountResults.csv"

  3. Review the output file to see the results. We didn't specify passwords, so the random passwords that Microsoft 365 generated are visible in the output file.

See also

Manage Microsoft 365 user accounts, licenses, and groups with PowerShell

Manage Microsoft 365 with PowerShell

Getting started with PowerShell for Microsoft 365