Azure Sponsorship subscription approved but not visible in Azure Portal

Question

Azure Sponsorship subscription approved but not visible in Azure Portal

Juan Pablo Grajales Ciro 0

Hello,

Our nonprofit Azure Sponsorship grant was renewed successfully.

The grant approval page shows:

Azure Sponsorship approved
$2,000 credit
Start date: 20/05/2026
End date: 20/05/2027

However, no subscription appears in Azure Portal under:

Subscriptions

We tested with:

<PII Removed>
<PII Removed>

But the subscription is still missing.

We need the subscription to access Azure OpenAI / Azure AI Foundry services.

Could you please verify:

If the sponsorship subscription was provisioned correctly
Which account owns the subscription
If additional billing profile configuration is required

Thank you.

Bharath Y P 10,610 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-05-21T21:43:10.7566667+00:00
Hello Juan Pablo, it sounds like your nonprofit sponsorship grant shows up as approved on the benefits page but you don’t yet see an actual “Azure Sponsorship” subscription in the portal. Here’s what to check and try:

Switch to the right Azure AD directory

In the portal (top-right corner), click your account name and Switch directory.

Make sure you’re in the tenant where the sponsorship was granted (often the .onmicrosoft.com directory).

Confirm the subscription really exists (and isn’t disabled)

Use Azure CLI or PowerShell • az login • az account list --all --output table • Or in PowerShell:
Connect-AzAccount Get-AzSubscription -All

Look for a subscription with OfferType or Name containing “Sponsorship” and note its ID and tenant.

Create or accept the subscription if it hasn’t been provisioned

Go to Cost Management + Billing > Billing accounts (or in the Microsoft nonprofit portal where you saw the approval)

Under the Azure Sponsorship benefit, click Get subscription or Create subscription

Follow the wizard—this will actually spin up the subscription tied to your credits.

Verify billing profile and ownership

In Cost Management + Billing > Profiles, ensure you have a billing profile linked to the sponsorship.

Check My access on the subscription to confirm your user has Owner (or at least Contributor) role.

Once the subscription appears, assign your user the right RBAC role for OpenAI usage

Open Subscriptions > [your sponsorship] > Access control (IAM)

Assign yourself (or the service principal) Cognitive Services OpenAI Contributor on the resource group you’ll deploy into.

If after those steps the subscription still doesn’t show up, it’s likely the sponsorship grant didn’t actually provision a subscription object in your directory yet. In that case please share:

• The Enrollment ID or Benefit Request ID shown on the grant approval page

• The exact Directory/Tenant name you’re signed into in the portal

• Any Subscription ID you see in the CLI output (even if it’s Disabled)

• Screenshots (redacted) of what you see under Subscriptions and Cost Management > Billing accounts

That info will help us confirm if the subscription needs to be manually provisioned or if there’s a directory mismatch.

Hope this helps get your Azure Sponsorship subscription visible and ready for Azure OpenAI / Foundry!

Reference list

Microsoft for Startups Sponsorship Coverage for Foundry Models

Role-based access control for Azure OpenAI in Microsoft Foundry Models (classic)

Role-based access control for Azure OpenAI in Azure AI Foundry Models

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

The Azure Sponsorship grant and the Azure subscription are separate objects. The grant can show as approved in the Nonprofit/ Sponsorship portals while the corresponding subscription is either:

Not visible because the wrong Microsoft Entra directory (tenant) is selected, or
Not associated with the signed-in account, or
Not yet fully provisioned/linked and requires support intervention.

To troubleshoot and verify:

Confirm the correct tenant and directory
1. Sign in to the Azure portal (https://portal.azure.com) with each of the tested accounts.
2. In the top-right corner, select the account name and choose Switch directory.
3. Switch through all available directories and, for each directory, go to Subscriptions.
4. If no subscriptions appear in any directory, follow step 3 below to contact support.
If a directory shows No subscriptions found, this typically means either the wrong directory is selected or the account doesn’t have sufficient permissions. In that case, ensure the account is added as Owner on the sponsorship subscription once it exists.
Verify subscription ownership and IDs (once visible)
1. In the Azure portal, go to Subscriptions.
2. Locate the sponsorship subscription and note the Subscription ID and Directory.
3. If the subscription still does not appear, proceed to support.
Use Nonprofit Hub to confirm grant status and entry point
1. Sign in to the Nonprofit Hub.
2. Select Nonprofit Grants.
3. On the Nonprofit Grants page, verify:
  - The Azure Sponsorship grant status.
  - Any activation or renewal prompts.
  - The link to the Microsoft Admin Center for the Azure grant.
4. If the grant shows as active but there is no corresponding subscription in Azure, a support request is required to have the sponsorship correctly linked to a subscription.
Open an Azure support request to validate provisioning and ownership Because the portal does not show the subscription even after directory switching, a back-end check is required:
1. Go to Help + support in the Azure portal.
2. Create a support request under Subscription management / Billing.
3. In the description, include:
  - The Nonprofit Azure Sponsorship grant details (start/end dates and $2,000 credit).
  - The tenant domains used (e.g., pcsocial.org and promotorapcs.onmicrosoft.com).
  - That the grant is approved but no subscription is visible in any directory.
  - That the goal is to:
    - Confirm the sponsorship subscription was provisioned.
    - Identify which account/tenant owns it.
    - Ensure it is associated with the correct billing profile so it can be used for Azure OpenAI / Azure AI Foundry.
If a subscription has been created under a different billing account or offer (for example, converted to Pay-As-You-Go instead of sponsorship), the billing support engineer can move the sponsorship to the correct subscription and reconcile any existing charges.
If automatically signed in as the wrong user If the browser signs in as a different account than intended:
1. Clear browser cache and cookies, or
2. Use a private/incognito window and sign in explicitly with the desired account.

These steps will allow support to verify whether the sponsorship subscription exists, which account and tenant own it, and whether any additional billing configuration is required so that it can be used to deploy Azure OpenAI / Azure AI Foundry resources.

References: