Transfer Azure subscriptions between subscribers and CSPs

  • How-to

This article provides high-level steps used to transfer Azure subscriptions to and from CSP partners and their customers. This information is intended for the Azure subscriber to help them coordinate with their partner. Information that Microsoft partners use for the transfer process is documented at Transfer subscriptions under an Azure plan from one partner to another.

Download or export cost and billing information that you want to keep before you start a transfer request. Billing and utilization information doesn't transfer with the subscription. For more information about exporting cost management data, see Create and manage exported data. For more information about downloading your invoice and usage data, see Download or view your Azure billing invoice and daily usage data.

Note

You can't transfer subscriptions to a Microsoft Entra B2B or Azure B2C tenant.

Prerequisites

None

Transfer EA or Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) enterprise subscriptions to a CSP partner

CSP direct bill partners certified as an Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSP) can request to transfer Azure subscriptions for their customers. The customers must have a Direct Enterprise Agreement (EA) or a Microsoft account team (Microsoft Customer Agreement enterprise). Subscription transfers are allowed only for customers that accepted an MCA and purchased an Azure plan with the CSP Program.

When the request is approved, the CSP can then provide a combined invoice to their customers. To learn more about CSPs transferring subscriptions, see Get billing ownership of Azure subscriptions for your Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA) account.

Important

After transferring an EA or MCA enterprise subscription to a CSP partner, any quota increases previously applied to the EA subscription will be reset to the default value. If more quota is required after the subscription transfer, have your CSP provider submit a quota increase request.

Other subscription transfers to a CSP partner

For Azure subscriptions that aren't eligible for billing transfer to MPA, as outlined in the Azure subscription transfer hub article, the subscriber must transfer resources from these source subscriptions to CSP subscriptions. Use the following guidance to move resources between subscriptions.

  1. Establish a reseller relationship with the customer. Review the CSP Regional Authorization Overview to ensure both customer and Partner tenant are within the same authorized regions.

  2. Work with your CSP partner to create target Azure CSP subscriptions.

  3. Ensure that the source and target CSP subscriptions are in the same Microsoft Entra tenant.
    You can't change the Microsoft Entra tenant for an Azure CSP subscription. Instead, you must add or associate the source subscription to the CSP Microsoft Entra tenant. For more information, see Associate or add an Azure subscription to your Microsoft Entra tenant.

    Important

    • When you associate a subscription to a different Microsoft Entra directory, users that have roles assigned using Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC) lose their access.
    • Policy Assignments are also removed from a subscription when the subscription is associated with a different directory.

  4. The user account that you use to do the transfer must have Azure RBAC owner access on both subscriptions.

  5. Before you begin, validate that all Azure resources can move from the source subscription to the destination subscription.
    Some Azure resources can't move between subscriptions. To view the complete list of Azure resource that can move, see Move operation support for resources.

    Important

    • Azure CSP supports only Azure Resource Manager resources. If any Azure resources in the source subscription were created using the Azure classic deployment model, you must migrate them to Azure Resource Manager before migration. You must be a partner in order to view the web page.

  6. Verify that all source subscription services use the Azure Resource Manager model. Then, transfer resources from source subscription to destination subscription using Azure Resource Move.

    Important

    • Moving Azure resources between subscriptions might result in service downtime, based on resources in the subscriptions.

Transfer CSP subscription to other offers

Subscriptions from a CSP Partner can be transferred to other Azure offers that aren't eligible for billing transfer from MPA. Details are in the Azure subscription transfer hub article. However, the subscriber needs to manually move resources between source CSP subscriptions and target subscriptions. All work done by a partner and a customer - it isn't work done by a Microsoft representative.

  1. The customer creates target Azure subscriptions.

  2. Ensure that the source and target subscriptions are in the same Microsoft Entra tenant. For more information about changing a Microsoft Entra tenant, see Associate or add an Azure subscription to your Microsoft Entra tenant. The change directory option isn't supported for the CSP subscription. For example, you're transferring from a CSP to a pay-as-you-go subscription. You need to change the directory of the pay-as-you-go subscription to match the directory.

    Important

    • When you associate a subscription to a different directory, users that have roles assigned using Azure RBAC lose their access.
    • Policy Assignments are also removed from a subscription when the subscription is associated with a different directory.

  3. The customer user account that you use to do the transfer must have Azure RBAC owner access on both subscriptions.

  4. Before you begin, validate that all Azure resources can move from the source subscription to the destination subscription.

    Important

  5. Transfer resources from the source subscription to the destination subscription using Azure Resource Move.

    Important

    • Moving Azure resources between subscriptions might result in service downtime, based on resources in the subscriptions.

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