Microsoft is making important changes to the licensing and availability of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. We are making these changes in response to feedback from the European Commission (EC). We believe this new licensing approach takes meaningful steps to address the Commission’s feedback while limiting disruption for customers and partners.
Starting on October 1, 2023, we will introduce a new lineup of commercial Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites in the EEA and Switzerland that do not include Teams, and a new standalone Teams offering for Enterprise customers. Existing customers in the EEA and Switzerland who wish to continue using the suites to which they have already subscribed may continue to use, renew, and add seats to their current plans as usual. This new lineup will:
- Introduce new EEA/Switzerland-specific suites without Teams, which will be named the same as the full suites plus “EEA (no Teams).”
- Introduce a new EEA-specific standalone Teams SKU for Enterprise: Microsoft Teams EEA
- End the sale of net-new subscriptions to all existing Enterprise SKUs with Teams (Office 365 E1/E3/E5 and Microsoft 365 E3/E5) in the EEA and Switzerland
- Continue to offer existing SMB and Frontline suites with Teams (Business Basic/Standard/Premium, Microsoft 365 F1, Microsoft 365 F3, Office 365 F3) alongside the new versions without Teams.
A full breakdown of SKU and price changes can be found in the licensing blog. You can read more about the decision to make this change in Microsoft’s public announcement.
Consult the FAQ document and partner guidance deck on the Teams in EU partner web site to learn more. There is a short training video available to help you learn how to talk about this change to your EEA and Swiss customers.
For questions not addressed in the FAQ, or to receive clarification on pricing, offer availability and upgrades, migrations and conversions, please create a support request in Partner Center.