How can Chinese students still work in our team now that MS Teams has been discontinued in China?

Question

How can Chinese students still work in our team now that MS Teams has been discontinued in China?

Bert Verhage 0

Since last month the MS Teams Personal (Free) account has been discontinued in China. However I read this information on the Teams website:

This change applies only to Teams for personal use in China. It does not impact your ability to:

Access Teams for work or school as a guest while using your personal account on web or mobile. Go to Teams on the web or the mobile app to sign in with guest access.

Question: If students in China cannot create a free account nor use the Teams app on mobile and web, how can they join a team on MS Teams to cooperate and share documents?

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4 answers

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Answer 1

TaoLi 110.9K Independent Advisor

Hello,

The change only affects Teams for personal use (Teams Free) in China. It does not remove the ability to participate in a work or school Teams organization as a guest.

Your Chinese students can still be invited as guests to your organization using their Microsoft accounts. After accepting the invitation, they should access the organization through:

https://teams.microsoft.com

They do not need to create or use a Teams Free workspace themselves; your organization needs to add them as guest users.

Microsoft confirms that guest access to Teams for work or school is not affected by this change:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/teams/free/settings/teams-free-availability-china

If guest access is not working after the invitation is accepted, please let me know the exact error message they receive.

Michelle 0 Reputation points

2026-09-09T14:49:33.8333333+00:00

I am using a paid MS365 and login to Team for personal use. When I sent a meeting invite to friend in China, they are not able to access it, even though they access as a guest.
EmilyS_726 27,470 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2026-09-11T00:06:35.86+00:00

@Michelle The "guest" concept does NOT apply to personal accounts. Unless you have a MS365 business license, you won't be able to create guest user for them.
Michelle 0 Reputation points

2026-09-11T00:53:49.2+00:00

Thanks for the response. This mean my personal account cannot invite anyone in China for a meeting even I am not in China. This is bad.
EmilyS_726 27,470 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2026-09-11T01:11:44.1133333+00:00

You are welcome. Unfortunately that's the case.

Answer 2

Thank you Tao Li for your answer.

Until now I asked the students to create a Free Teams account and then I added them as a Guest member to a a Team.

Now you say:

They do not need to create or use a Teams Free workspace themselves; your organization needs to add them as guest users.

What should I do to invite them as a guest to a Team and what should the student do to login? (I need a detailed description to instruct the Chinese students)

And will a student from China as a guest member, still have the same possibilities for sharing files in a Team and in a Channel? Can they still run the Teams app on their mobile?

Answer 3

Hello,You do not need to ask the students to create a Teams Free workspace anymore. Their personal Microsoft account can still be used as a Guest account in your work/school Teams organization.

For you:

Open the Team → ... → Add member.
Enter the student's Microsoft account email address.
Add the student as a Guest.

For the student:

Open the invitation email and accept it.
Sign in with the same Microsoft account that you invited.
Select your organization/Team when prompted.

Microsoft confirms that users in China can still access Teams for work or school as a Guest using a personal Microsoft account on web or mobile:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/teams/free/settings/teams-free-availability-china

Guest users can participate in channel conversations and share/access files in Team channels, although some functions are more limited than for normal organization members:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/guest-experience

Yes, the students can also use the Teams mobile app in China for this Guest access. The restriction is on Teams for personal use (Teams Free), not Guest access to your work/school organization.

Answer 4

@Bert Verhage

First of all, I think we need to make sure we are on the same page regarding the definition of "guest user".

If you are using personal account to sign into your Teams, and you want to add people to your chat, groups, community channels or what have you, these people are NOT "guest" by Microsoft's definition.

Guest user is a concept only applicable in Teams for business.

I will give you an analogy -

Adding them as guest users is like inviting the them into your office building so you can work together inside the same environment.

Before they can enter, you first register their personal identity with your organization (Microsoft's lingo is "tenant"). When they arrive, security checks their ID against the information you provided and issues them a guest badge. That guest badge allows them to enter your building and access the areas and resources you have permitted them to use.

In Microsoft 365, their personal account is essentially their ID, while the guest account in your tenant acts like the guest badge that gives them access to your organization.

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So a very important question here is - What type of account are you using to sign into your Teams? If you are using a personal account, then this "guest user" route is a dead end as it is not applicable.

But if you are using a work/school account to sign into Teams, great, next step is, are you the admin user for the business/organization account? That determines if you have the right/access to add guest user.