Guide · Licensing
Your data lives in your tenant and the tenant is yours. Changing Cloud Solution Provider changes who invoices you, nothing else. The six steps, the one that costs money if you time it wrong, and what to check before you accept.
By Alex Makey · 6 September 2026 · 6 min read · Verified against Microsoft documentation, September 2026
The question arrives with an anxiety behind it: if we move our subscriptions to a different partner, do we lose the mailboxes? The answer is no, and it is worth understanding exactly why, because the same misunderstanding causes people to stay with a partner they should have left years ago.
Your data lives in your tenant. Your tenant belongs to you. The Cloud Solution Provider is a commercial relationship attached to the tenant: the partner buys subscriptions from Microsoft, assigns them to your tenant, invoices you, and — if you have granted it — holds delegated administration rights.
Changing partner changes who invoices you. It does not migrate anything. No mailbox moves, no file moves, no user is recreated. The users notice nothing.
1. Accept the new partner. The new partner sends a partner relationship request — a link that a Global Administrator opens and accepts in the admin centre. This establishes the reseller relationship. Nothing has been bought yet.
2. Decide about delegated administration. The same request usually asks for Granular Delegated Admin Privileges — the right for the partner’s staff to administer your tenant. Accept the roles you want them to have, for the duration you want. You can revoke this at any time in the admin centre under Partner relationships.
3. Provision the new subscriptions. The new partner buys the same SKUs you already have and they appear in your tenant alongside the old ones. For a short period you have double the licences: the old partner’s and the new partner’s. That overlap is deliberate.
4. Reassign users. Move each user from the old partner’s licence to the new partner’s equivalent. Same SKU, different subscription. Users notice nothing; the mailbox does not blink. In PowerShell this is a Graph call per user, or in bulk with group-based licensing if you have set it up.
5. Cancel the old subscriptions. Only once every user is on the new ones. Under New Commerce, an annual subscription can be cancelled with a pro-rated refund only within the first days after purchase; otherwise it runs to its renewal date. So the practical approach is to time the switch to the old partner’s renewal dates, and simply not renew.
6. Remove the old partner. Admin centre → Partner relationships → remove. Their delegated access ends immediately.
The only thing that costs money is step 5. If the old partner sold you an annual commitment three months ago, you cannot cancel it without paying the remaining nine months. Nothing about the new partner changes that; Microsoft’s term applies whoever sold it.
So: list every subscription with its renewal date. Move the monthly ones now. Move each annual one in the month it renews — buy from the new partner, reassign, let the old one lapse. A staggered estate takes a year to fully transfer, which is normal, and the new partner should be planning around your dates rather than asking you to pay twice.
Is the new partner authorised for your tenant’s country? Microsoft’s CSP programme is regional. A partner authorised in one region cannot sell into another, and the request will fail or the subscriptions will not provision. The country list here shows which regions we hold; any partner should be able to show you theirs.
Does the price include the same commitment term? A quote that beats your current price by fifteen percent may be an annual commitment against your current monthly one. Compare like with like.
What delegated rights are they asking for? Global Administrator to the whole tenant is more than most support arrangements need. Ask for the minimum, time-limited.
Support comes from the partner of record. Once you have moved, the old partner has no obligation and usually no access. If the old partner also runs your tenant day to day, that is the relationship you are actually ending, and it deserves a handover: documentation, credentials for anything they set up, and a date.
We are a CSP, so we benefit when people move. But the mechanics above are the same whichever direction you go, including away from us: accept the new partner, overlap, reassign, lapse, remove. Nobody should be told that switching is risky. It is one of the least risky things you can do in a Microsoft tenant.
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Related questions
No. The data lives in your tenant, which belongs to you. Changing partner changes who invoices you and, if you allow it, who has delegated administrative access. Nothing is migrated and users notice nothing.
Accept the new partner’s relationship request, have them provision the same SKUs so both sets exist briefly, reassign each user to the new subscription, let the old subscriptions lapse at their renewal dates, then remove the old partner relationship.
Under New Commerce only within the first days after purchase, with a pro-rated refund. After that the annual term runs to its renewal date whoever sold it. Time the switch to those dates rather than paying twice.
They need to be authorised for the CSP region that contains your tenant’s country. Microsoft’s programme is regional, and a partner outside your region cannot provision subscriptions for you.
The minimum their support model needs, time-limited, reviewed periodically. Granular Delegated Admin Privileges let you grant specific roles rather than Global Administrator, and you can revoke them at any time under Partner relationships.
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