When your subscription ends, your access to Microsoft 365 products and services, apps, and customer data go through multiple statuses before the subscription is fully turned off, or deleted. Being aware of this status progression can help you return your subscription to an active status before it's too late. If you're leaving Microsoft 365, we recommend that you back up your data before it gets deleted.
This article applies to all Microsoft 365 for business subscriptions, including Enterprise and Volume Licensing.
For some subscriptions, you can only cancel during a limited window of time after you buy or renew your subscription. If the cancellation window has passed, turn off recurring billing to cancel the subscription at the end of its term.
When your subscription ends, it goes through multiple lifecycle statuses before it gets deleted. This gives you, as the admin, time to reactivate the subscription if you want to continue the service, or to back up your customer data if you decide you no longer want the subscription.
A subscription goes through the following statuses over the course of its lifecycle:
Active > Expired > Disabled > Deleted
The Expired status starts immediately after the subscription reaches its end date, regardless of whether it expired naturally by reaching the end of the subscription term, you turned off recurring billing, canceled, or upgraded it.
The subscription only enters the Expired status after all the licenses are removed. If you order fewer than the original number of licenses, the subscription doesn’t enter the Expired status. Instead, admins have 90 days to resolve the conflict for any assigned licenses in excess of the purchased quantity. During this 90 day period there’s no service interruption to subscriptions that are assigned on a per user basis. For nonuser based subscriptions, like Office 365 Extra File Storage for SharePoint, a reduction in the license quantity immediately results in reduced storage. For Enterprise volume licensing customers, we recommend placing an Online Reservation to restore service, and then contact your licensing partner to understand why there was a reduction in licenses.
For yearly or three-year subscriptions, if you turn off recurring billing, it goes through all the lifecycle statuses. The Expired status starts on the subscription end date, not the date that you turned off recurring billing.
For monthly subscriptions, if you cancel a monthly subscription within the cancellation policy window, it skips the Expired status and immediately moves to the Disabled status on the date you cancel it. This means that your users immediately lose access to the Microsoft 365 assets, and only admins have access to the data during the Disabled state.
If a subscription is deleted, adding a new subscription of the same type doesn't restore the data that was associated with the deleted subscription.
What is "customer data"? Customer data, as defined in the Microsoft Online Service Terms, refers to all data, including all text, sound, or image files that are provided to Microsoft by, or on behalf of, the customer through the customer's use of Microsoft 365 services. To learn more about the protection of customer data, see Get started with the Microsoft Service Trust Portal.
The number of days a subscription stays in each lifecycle status is different, depending on whether you bought the subscription directly from Microsoft, or through an Enterprise agreement, a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), or Volume Licensing (VL). For more information, see Lengths of time a subscription spends in each lifecycle status, later in this article. The following table explains what you can expect for each lifecycle status when a paid Microsoft 365 for business subscription ends.
| Active | Expired* | Disabled* | Deleted | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer data | Data is accessible to all | Data is accessible to all | Data is accessible to admins only | Data is deleted and Microsoft Entra ID is removed, if not in use by other services |
| Users | Users have normal access to Microsoft 365, files, and apps | Users have normal access to Microsoft 365, files, and apps | Users can't access apps in Microsoft 365. Apps in Microsoft 365 eventually move into a read-only, reduced functionality mode and display Unlicensed Product notifications | Users can't access Microsoft 365, files, or apps |
| Licenses bought via the Volume Licensing program | Services available for 90 days from subscription end date |
*For most offers, in most countries/regions.
For most offers, in most countries and regions, the number of days a subscription stays in each lifecycle status is shown in the following table.
| Active | Expired | Disabled | Deleted | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All subscription terms | Default status | 30 days | 90 days | Terminal state |
If you’re an Enterprise customer, the lifecycle statuses and time periods for each are different, based on the length of your subscription. The following table lists the statuses and number of days for each status and each subscription length.
| Active | Grace | Inactive | Deleted | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly term | Default status | 30 days | 90 days | Terminal state |
| Annual term | Default status | 30 days | 90 days | Terminal state |
| Multi-year term | Default status | 90 days | 90 days | Terminal state |
If you bought your subscription through an Enterprise volume licensing agreement or through the Open Value licensing program, the following table lists the statuses and number of days.
| Active | Grace | Inactive | Deleted | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | Default status. Subscription end date aligns with the agreement end date | 90 days from subscription end date | 60 days | Terminal State |
| Open / Open Value | Subscription start date based on activation of token (not necessarily purchase date) | 30 days | 90 days | Terminal state |
Not all VL subscriptions have a 90 day grace period. Some products and services, like PowerBI Premium P plans and some Microsoft 365 Copilot subscriptions bought through VL only have a 30 day grace period.
If you bought your subscription through a CSP, see Subscription lifecycle states - Partner Center for descriptions of the lifecycle statuses that apply to those subscriptions.
While a subscription is active, you and your users have normal access to your data, services like email, OneDrive, and apps in Microsoft 365. As the admin, you receive a series of notifications via email and in the admin center as your subscription nears its expiration date.
Before the subscription reaches its expiration date, you have two options:
This section contains information specifically for customers who bought online services either through the Open Volume Licensing program or through a volume licensing program, like Enterprise, Select Plus, or Microsoft Products & Services Agreement (MPSA).
The Open Volume Licensing program was retired in December 2021.
For all VL subscriptions, the Expired status starts immediately after the subscription reaches its end date, and lasts for 90 days. Services immediately become unavailable when the Expired status ends. The exact end date depends on how you bought your subscription.
If you cancel your subscription within the cancellation policy window, the subscription skips the Expired status and moves directly to the Disabled status.
We recommend that you back up your data before you cancel your subscription. As an admin, you can still access and back up data for your organization while it’s in the Disabled status. Any customer data that you leave behind might be deleted after 90 days and will be deleted no later than 180 days after cancellation.
If you explicitly delete a subscription, it skips the Expired and Disabled statuses and SharePoint Online data and content, including OneDrive, is immediately deleted.
If you're a partner who's an admin on behalf of (AOBO) a customer, and you canceled a subscription, it can take up to 90 days for the admin center to reflect the status change.
To learn how to cancel, see Cancel your subscription in the Microsoft 365 admin center. If you want your subscription data to be deleted before the typical Disabled status is over, you can close your account.
When your trial ends, we automatically start billing you for your subscription. Before your trial ends, you can take one of the following actions:
The information on this page is subject to the Microsoft Policy Disclaimer and Change Notice. Return to this site periodically to review any changes.