Down grading Express Route Circuit bandwidth

Question

Down grading Express Route Circuit bandwidth

Don Broxson 0

We have a Premium Express Route Circuit set to 500Mb. We no longer need the bandwidth and would like to downgrade to 10Mb.

Does anyone know if there are any issues with doing this?

Any Expected outages/downtime?

I tried to put in a support ticket, but it wanted an Activity error to put in the ticket and this was only for planning.

Thank you

Vinayteja Lellela 110 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-09T19:19:49.9966667+00:00
Hello Don Broxson,

There are some gotchas with ExpressRoute bandwidth downgrades.

Can you downgrade a Premium ExpressRoute circuit from 500 Mbps to 10 Mbps?

For ExpressRoute, downgrading to a lower bandwidth is not supported on the same circuit. Instead, you must deprovision the existing circuit and then reprovision a new one at the reduced bandwidth.

That means this isn’t an “in-place resize” like an upgrade.

Will there be outages / downtime?

Because the documented approach for a downgrade is:

deprovision the current circuit, then

create/provision a new circuit with the lower bandwidth,

There can be disruption depending on how your network failover/routing is set up during the transition. The provided guidance also notes that to minimize downtime/disruption, you should test and validate connectivity of the new circuit before deprovisioning the old one.

Anything to watch out for?

Ensure your ExpressRoute provider has capacity for the reduced configuration.

Your attempt to open a support ticket with an “activity error” may just be a tooling/workflow issue on the ticketing side—functionally, the key limitation is that Azure doesn’t support reducing bandwidth on the same circuit.

Can you please update us if the action plan provided was helpful?

Should there be any follow-up questions or concerns, please let us know and we shall try to address them.

If these answer your question, click "Upvote" which may be beneficial to other community members reading this thread.
Vinayteja Lellela 110 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-14T20:29:21.2533333+00:00

Hello Don Broxson, following up to see if you had a chance to check the above response and if it was helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Vinayteja Lellela 110 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-15T22:21:22.2633333+00:00

Hello Don Broxson, following up to see if you had a chance to check the above response and if it was helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions.

1 answer

Your answer

Vinayteja Lellela 110 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-09T19:19:49.9966667+00:00

Hello Don Broxson,

There are some gotchas with ExpressRoute bandwidth downgrades.

Can you downgrade a Premium ExpressRoute circuit from 500 Mbps to 10 Mbps?

For ExpressRoute, downgrading to a lower bandwidth is not supported on the same circuit. Instead, you must deprovision the existing circuit and then reprovision a new one at the reduced bandwidth.

That means this isn’t an “in-place resize” like an upgrade.

Will there be outages / downtime?

Because the documented approach for a downgrade is:

deprovision the current circuit, then

create/provision a new circuit with the lower bandwidth,

There can be disruption depending on how your network failover/routing is set up during the transition. The provided guidance also notes that to minimize downtime/disruption, you should test and validate connectivity of the new circuit before deprovisioning the old one.

Anything to watch out for?

Ensure your ExpressRoute provider has capacity for the reduced configuration.

Your attempt to open a support ticket with an “activity error” may just be a tooling/workflow issue on the ticketing side—functionally, the key limitation is that Azure doesn’t support reducing bandwidth on the same circuit.

Can you please update us if the action plan provided was helpful?

Should there be any follow-up questions or concerns, please let us know and we shall try to address them.

If these answer your question, click "Upvote" which may be beneficial to other community members reading this thread.
Vinayteja Lellela 110 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-14T20:29:21.2533333+00:00

Hello Don Broxson, following up to see if you had a chance to check the above response and if it was helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Vinayteja Lellela 110 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-15T22:21:22.2633333+00:00

Hello Don Broxson, following up to see if you had a chance to check the above response and if it was helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Answer 1

hi Don Broxson & thx for sharing urs issue here at Q&A portal,

yes, you can reduce the bandwidth of an ExpressRoute circuit, but I'd plan it as a maintenance activity. The Azure-side change is usually straightforward, but the overall impact depends on your connectivity provider. Some providers apply the bandwidth change seamlessly, while others may briefly reprovision the circuit or require coordination on their side. From the Azure perspective, there isn't an expected prolonged outage just because you're changing from 500 Mbps to 10 Mbps. Still, I'd expect a brief interruption to be possible during the update and plan accordingly. Before making the change, make sure your normal traffic comfortably fits within 10 Mbps. Dropping from 500 Mbps to 10 Mbps is a significant reduction, and if your traffic exceeds that, you'll see congestion rather than a connectivity problem. https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/expressroute/expressroute-howto-circuit-portal-resource-manager

If your ExpressRoute circuit is provided through a connectivity provider, I'd also check with them whether they have any maintenance requirements or expected downtime for a bandwidth downgrade. The Azure part is only half of the circuit.

rgds,

Alex

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