Manage user access to Teams

Important

Starting October 1, 2023, new commercial customers in the EEA and Switzerland who wish to provide workers with both Microsoft Teams and the value in existing Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Enterprise suites (E1/E3/E5) will need to purchase two SKUs: one E1/E3/E5 EEA (no Teams) suite and Microsoft Teams EEA. Microsoft 365 Business suites (up to 300 users) and Frontline workers will be available in versions both with and without Teams in these regions.

EEA and Switzerland customers who were already subscribed to Microsoft 365 or Office 365 suites that include Teams prior to October 1, 2023 will continue to be able to use and renew those subscriptions.

For more information on this licensing change in the EEA and Switzerland, see New subscription structure for Microsoft 365 in Europe.

You manage access to Teams at the user level by assigning or removing a Microsoft Teams product license. Except for joining Teams meetings anonymously, each user in your organization must have a Teams license before they can use Teams. You can assign a Teams license for new users when new user accounts are created or to users with existing accounts.

By default, when a licensing plan (for example, Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3 or Microsoft 365 Business Premium) is assigned to a user, a Teams license is automatically assigned, and the user is enabled for Teams. You can disable or enable Teams for a user by removing or assigning a license at any time.

Use messaging policies, managed from the Teams admin center, to control what chat and channel messaging features are available to users in Teams. You can use the default policy or create one or more custom messaging policies for people in your organization. To learn more, read Manage messaging policies in Teams. You manage Teams licenses in the Microsoft 365 admin center or by using PowerShell. You must be a Global admin or User management admin to manage licenses.

Note

We recommend that you enable Teams for all users so that teams can be formed organically for projects and other dynamic initiatives. Even if you're running a pilot, it may still be helpful to keep Teams enabled for all users, but only target communications to the pilot group of users.

Using the Microsoft 365 admin center

Teams user-level licenses are managed directly through the Microsoft 365 admin center user management interfaces. An administrator can assign licenses to new users when new user accounts are created, or to users with existing accounts.

Important

The administrator must have Global Administrator or User Management Administrator privileges to manage Microsoft Teams licenses.

Use the Microsoft 365 admin center to manage Teams licenses for individual users or small sets of users at a time. You can manage Teams licenses on the Licenses page (for up to 20 users at a time) or Active users page. The method you choose depends on whether you want to manage product licenses for specific users or manage user licenses for specific products.

If you need to manage Teams licenses for a large number of users, such as hundreds or thousands of users, use PowerShell or group-based licensing in Microsoft Entra ID.

Assign a Teams license

The steps are different depending on whether you use the Licenses page or Active users page. For step-by-step instructions, see Assign licenses to users.

   
Screenshot 1 of Teams license enabled for a user. Screenshot 2 of Teams license enabled for a user

Remove a Teams license

Important

It takes about 24 hours for disabling a Teams SKU to take effect.

When you remove a Teams license from a user, Teams is disabled for that user, and they will no longer see Teams in the app launcher or homepage. For detailed steps, see Unassign licenses from users.

   
Screenshot 1 of the Teams license disabled for a user. Screenshot 2 of the Teams license disabled for a user

Using PowerShell

Use PowerShell to manage Teams licenses for users in bulk. You enable and disable Teams through PowerShell in the same way that you would for any other service plan license. You'll need the identifiers for the service plans for Teams, which are as follows:

  • Microsoft Teams: TEAMS1
  • Microsoft Teams for GCC: TEAMS_GOV
  • Microsoft Teams for DoD: TEAMS_DOD

Assign Teams licenses in bulk

For detailed steps, see Assign licenses to user accounts with PowerShell.

Remove Teams licenses in bulk

For detailed steps, see Disable access to services with PowerShell and Disable access to services while assigning user licenses.

Example

The following is an example of how to use the Set-MgUserLicense cmdlet to disable Teams for users who have a specific licensing plan. For example, follow these steps to first disable Teams for all users who have a particular licensing plan. Then enable Teams for each individual user who should have access to Teams.

Important

The Set-MgUserLicense cmdlet will enable all services that were previously disabled unless explicitly identified in your custom script. For example, if you want to leave both Exchange and Sway disabled while also disabling Teams, you'll need to include this in the script or both Exchange and Sway will be enabled for those users you identified.

Run the following command to display all available licensing plans in your organization. To learn more, see View licenses and services with PowerShell.

Get-MgSubscribedSku

Run the following commands, where <CompanyName:License> is your organization name and the identifier for the licensing plan that you retrieved in the earlier step. For example, ContosoSchool:ENTERPRISEPACK_STUDENT.

    $acctSKU="<CompanyName:License>"
    $x = Set-MgUserLicense -AccountSkuId $acctSKU -DisabledPlans "TEAMS1"

Run the following command to disable Teams for all users who have an active license for the licensing plan.

Get-MgUser | Where-Object {$_.licenses[0].AccountSku.SkuPartNumber -eq  ($acctSKU).Substring($acctSKU.IndexOf(":")+1,  $acctSKU.Length-$acctSKU.IndexOf(":")-1) -and $_.IsLicensed -eq $True} |  Set-MgUserLicense -LicenseOptions $x