This is for Microsoft 365 for business (Business Basic, Standard, Premium) bought directly from Microsoft. You need to be a Billing administrator or billing account owner. Whoever signed up is the owner by default.

Before you start: ask everyone to save their OneDrive and SharePoint files and export mailboxes, and remove any custom domain you added to the subscription.

1. Sign in at admin.microsoft.com.
2. Go to Billing > Your products. In the simplified view, click Subscriptions.
3. Select the subscription you want to cancel.
4. Under Billing settings, choose Subscription status > Cancel subscription. On older accounts, it's under Subscription and payment settings > Cancel subscription.
5. Within 7 days of purchase or renewal: pick a reason and click Cancel subscription. You'll get a prorated refund.
6. After 7 days: click edit the recurring billing settings, set recurring billing to Off and click Save. The subscription won't renew and you keep access until the term ends.
7. Repeat for every subscription you want to stop, including add-ons.

On older accounts with more than 25 licenses, you need to reduce licenses to 25 or fewer before you can cancel online.

Microsoft 365 Personal or Family (not business plans):

• Bought from Microsoft: sign in at account.microsoft.com, open Subscriptions, choose Manage next to Microsoft 365 and click Cancel subscription.
• Bought in the App Store on iPhone, iPad or Mac: open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions > Microsoft 365 > Cancel Subscription.
• Bought in Google Play: open Google Play > Payments and subscriptions > Subscriptions > Microsoft 365 and cancel.

Bought through a partner or reseller (CSP)? Many small businesses get Microsoft 365 from an IT provider. In that case, you can't cancel in the admin center. Contact the partner, ideally within 7 days of purchase or renewal so you can still get a prorated refund.

Bought through a Microsoft sales rep? The 7-day policy doesn't apply. Contact your Microsoft seller about changes.

Closing everything? Canceling stops billing, but your Microsoft tenant stays. If you want to delete it completely, follow Microsoft's steps to close your business account after all subscriptions have ended. If you use Microsoft Defender for Business, offboard devices first.

Most Microsoft 365 overspend comes from licenses, not the plan. Check these before you cancel:

• Licenses for people who left. Converting a former employee's mailbox to a shared mailbox keeps their email and frees the license. Then reduce the license count in Billing > Your products.
• Unassigned licenses. Under Billing > Licenses, compare purchased vs. assigned. You pay for every purchased license, even if nobody uses it.
• A plan that's too big. If people only need email and web apps, Business Basic costs less than Business Standard. Frontline workers may not need desktop Office at all.
• Annual commitment. On annual plans, you can only lower the license count at renewal or within the first 7 days, so plan ahead.

Subscope helps here: it shows which Microsoft 365 licenses nobody has used in 30 days, so you can cut them before renewal instead of canceling for everyone.

When a business subscription ends, users lose access to their data and the apps switch to read-only mode with Unlicensed Product warnings. The subscription goes through reduced-functionality stages before it's deleted.

Data you leave behind may be deleted after 30 days and is deleted no later than 180 days after cancellation. If you explicitly delete the subscription, OneDrive and SharePoint data is deleted right away.

Before canceling, export mailboxes to .pst files with Outlook and copy OneDrive and SharePoint files to another storage location.