A cloud-based identity and access management service for securing user authentication and resource access
To transfer ownership of an Azure subscription, use one of the following approaches depending on what needs to move: billing ownership, directory (tenant) association, or both.
- Confirm prerequisites
- Be Subscription Owner on the source subscription.
- Be billing account owner for that subscription if changing billing ownership.
- Ensure the Owner role is directly assigned (not via group/PIM).
- Have a user account in both source and target directories if changing directory.
- If only changing the Microsoft Entra directory (same billing owner) This changes which tenant the subscription is associated with but does not change who pays the bill.
Steps (Azure portal):
- Sign in to the Azure portal with an account that has the Owner role on the subscription.
- Go to Subscriptions and select the subscription.
- Select Change directory.
- Review the warnings and select the target directory.
- Select Change.
- After success, use Switch directories to move to the new directory context.
Note: Changing the subscription directory is a service-level operation and does not affect billing ownership. To delete the original directory later, billing ownership must be transferred separately.
- If transferring billing ownership to another account (may be in another tenant) This changes who is billed and who is the subscription owner from a billing perspective.
Steps (high level):
- Initiate transfer from the current billing owner using the billing portal workflow described in Transfer billing ownership of an Azure subscription.
- Specify the recipient’s account (email) as the new owner.
- The recipient receives an email, opens the link, signs in or creates an Azure account, and selects a payment method.
- After acceptance, the subscription’s billing ownership is transferred.
If the new owner’s account is in another Microsoft Entra tenant, the subscription can be moved into that tenant as part of the transfer. When doing so:
- All existing Azure role assignments (users, groups, service principals) lose access.
- Only the new owner retains access and must re-create role assignments.
- If transferring to a different Microsoft Entra directory and changing billing ownership Use the combined approach:
- From the current billing owner, start a billing ownership transfer and ensure the Subscription Microsoft Entra tenant option is selected so the subscription moves to the new account’s tenant.
- The new owner accepts the transfer via email and completes payment setup.
- After completion, the subscription is in the new owner’s tenant, and all previous role assignments are permanently removed.
- The new owner must re-create role assignments and any directory-dependent configurations.
- Important warnings
- When a subscription is transferred to a different Microsoft Entra directory, all role assignments in the source directory are permanently deleted and cannot be restored.
- Plan and document existing role assignments and directory-dependent resources before transferring.
If the goal is only to associate the subscription with another tenant under the same billing owner, use Change directory. If the goal is to hand over full ownership (who pays and who controls the subscription), use the billing ownership transfer workflow, optionally with tenant move enabled.
References:
- Transfer an Azure subscription to a different Microsoft Entra directory
- Transfer billing ownership of an MOSP Azure subscription to another account
- How to change the Entra directory of your Azure subscription
- Associate or add an Azure subscription to your Microsoft Entra tenant
- Change Directory Tenants with your Azure Subscriptions
- Transfer a customer's Azure subscriptions to a different partner
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