Extended service terms (EST)

Applies to: Partner Center

Appropriate roles: Admin agent | Billing admin | Helpdesk agent | Sales agent

Overview

Extended Service Terms are new end-of term options for partners that need more time to decide between canceling a subscription or renewing it. This added flexibility costs 3% above the monthly rate for the stock keeping unit (SKU) but allows for ultimate flexibility of renewing, upgrading, or canceling at any time.

Effective May 4, 2026, the free grace period for accessing services on nonrenewed subscriptions is discontinued. Customers who don't renew must either cancel at end of term and lose access immediately or enter a paid extended service term (EST) to continue service. The extended service term bills monthly at the current monthly term rate plus a 3% uplift (or 23% if no monthly plan exists).

EST includes three end of term options, replacing the historic 2 (renew on/off). These three options give partners more control over what happens at the end of term and allows them more options if more time is needed to resolve customer intent.

Today, after a subscription expires, partners have two options:

• Renew the subscription.
• Turn autorenew off, which triggers a grace period of free service for a limited time.

In the future state, the free grace period is eliminated, and partners/customers must choose to:

• Renew the subscription works like it always has, supporting scheduled changes or renewing as is.
• Cancel at expiration stops customer's services at the end of the term. Data retention is preserved but the subscription can't be recovered or reactivated.
• Renew to EST to continue service, billed at the EST rate (monthly term rate + 3% uplift). This option provides flexibility for further changes.

Timelines

November 3, 2025: Sandbox resources available

• Partners can experience the new end-of term options (renew, cancel, move to EST) for new subscriptions (purchased after November 3, 2025) in sandbox.
• Continued support for renewal options and paths, no changes here
• Allows new UX and API paths to select EST
• Converts autorenew false paths to EST
• Supports all stock keeping units (SKUs)

February 1, 2026: EST SKUs available on price list preview

• EST SKUs available on price list preview so partners can prepare their systems ahead of the effective date
• Only subscriptions that have end dates after May 4, 2026 can move to EST.

February 6, 2026 to February 15, 2026: Conversion backfill of autorenew false to EST. During this time, the system converts subscriptions eligible for EST from autorenew false to EST. Partners can start changing end of term choices after February 16, 2026. Conversion backfill for specialized offers comes later from March 10, 2026 to March 16, 2026. Some remaining specialized offer EST backfills will complete by March 23, 2026.

February 16, 2026: Production availability for UX and API allowing partners to select the three end of term paths

• Partners can manage and schedule end-of-term options (renew, cancel, move to EST) for all eligible* subscriptions in sandbox and production.
• For subscriptions expiring after May 4 1, 2026, partners can opt out of EST.
• After this date, API requests for autorenew false are converted to EST unless an explicit intent is included.
• Specialized offers production availability started on March 16, 2026 and will complete by March 23, 2026

February 27, 2026: Partner Center data export of subscriptions configured to go to EST at the end of their terms. Partners can use this data to quickly identify EST subscriptions if they want to change them to cancel.

May 4, 2026: Enforcement of EST

• Subscriptions purchased or renewed after April 1, 2025 ensure their next renewal after May 4, 2026 is eligible for EST. Enforcement date is for both regular SKUs and specialized offers.

February 16, 2026 known issues

Options to set EST for the end of term are available from February 16, 2026. Partners should review and make necessary changes to subscriptions backfilled to EST before the May 4, 2026 enforcement date. There are a few issues the partner center team is working to resolve. Updates are posted when more information can be shared:

• Extended service term renewal options are shown in the partner center user interface for some end of sale subscriptions. This issue should be addressed in the coming weeks.
• EST SKU names in the February price list had do not use in their titles, these SKU names should be addressed in the next monthly price list update.
• EST isn't available for a few product SKUs. These SKUs should be available soon:

Subscriptions eligible for EST

• Includes commercial and pubsec (education, nonprofit, government community cloud)
• Includes specialized offers
• Includes endofsalewithconversion SKUs
• Subscriptions purchased or renewed between April 1, 2025 and May 4, 2026 with term end dates after May 4, 2026.
• Doesn't include trials and end of sale SKUs

EST backfill

Subscriptions that have autorenew set to false without an explicit cancellation set are converted to EST with auto renew true to preserve customer service after the term ends. The backfill converts these subscriptions to EST, completing by February 16, 2026. After this date, partners can then explicitly set eligible subscriptions to cancel for terms ending after the enforcement date. During the backfill, calls to set autorenew false are converted to EST. Partners can start any changes to course correct end of term starting the production availability date.

Continued autorenew false settings

Partners who continue to set auto renew to false in the APIs after EST features are available initially get a response from the API of autorenew false and cancel at end of term. Subscription updates with only autorenew set to false without scheduledActions of cancel actionType are quickly converted to EST with auto renew true within 24 hours. Partners need to explicitly set the scheduledActions to cancel along with autorenw false to cancel an EST eligible subscription at the end of the term.

Download EST subscriptions

Partners can view and change subscription's end of term options to either renew, go to EST, or cancel at end of term. These three options are only available for eligible subscriptions as defined in this topic. Eligible subscriptions with autorenew set to false without explicit cancelations are converted to autorenew true with EST as their next term instruction. Partners can export subscriptions configured to go to EST at the end of their terms by using the AI Assist feature in partner center. This feature allows partners to enter a prompt the AI Assist uses to generate a downloadable data file of subscriptions configured to go to EST at the end of their term.

An example of an AI Assist prompt to get EST subscription downloads: Please generate a list of all my subscriptions that are set to go to EST at the end of their term.

This prompt creates a download task the system executes and returns a link and an Id for the download file request. The download request is located in the Downloads section in the customer workspace. Initially, the download request is in a pending state until it's completed. Most download file requests may take up to 6 hours to complete and can only be requested once a day. Some requests for very large partner tenants may take over 10 hours. Admin and sales agents have access to any download requests created by any users in the partner tenant. Requests to regenerate the file without waiting 24 hours returns the current download file. Partners use the download file to identify, review, and make changes to their customer's subscriptions currently set to EST. The file includes a list of subscriptions with data:

The EST download file includes all subscriptions set to EST. Subscription end of term is set to EST by:

• The partner selecting extended service term by using the API or partner center user interface
• The result of the backfill job that ran from February 9-February 15
• API requests to set auto renew to false without explicit cancelation next term instructions

There is no API to return the list of subscriptions set to go to EST at end of term. getSubscriptions doesn't include EST properties per line item about which subscriptions are set to EST or in EST. Partners have to rely on API results per subscription to understand end of term settings or whether an existing subscription is currently in EST.

Sandbox SKUs and capabilities supported

EST functionality was first made available on November 3, 2025. February 16, 2026 enables production along with sandbox. Partners can view the EST price list for SKU information for both sandbox and production environments.

How extended service terms (ESTs) work

ESTs are implemented as new monthly term SKUs that subscriptions can convert to if a partner selects the option. These monthly terms are more flexible than other new commerce monthly subscription terms, allowing the partner to cancel at any point during the EST term. Every available SKU has a related EST SKU available. Business Premium has different terms, and billing plans available, but all align to one EST. Partners can also convert the EST back to the original subscription's SKU or upgrade to other SKUs. These changes during EST can happen immediately or be scheduled to align to the end of the EST's monthly term. Every license-based new commerce SKU has an associated EST a partner can elect to move to if needed. Partners can also renew as they always have, or decide to cancel services at the end of their customer's subscription term.

Partners can't convert to or purchase EST SKUs outright, ESTs can only be acquired by selecting the user interface option on the subscription details and edit page. Partners can call the update subscription API to set the scheduledAction to EST at the end of the current term.

Once in an extended service term, the subscriptions work like other monthly term subscriptions. The main difference allows partners to cancel monthly EST subscriptions at any time, beyond the 7-day cancelation window other terms enforce. Converting out of EST to other SKUs behaves like any other monthly subscription outbound conversion. Proration, term lengths, and other conversion details are already documented, EST is no different. Partner of record validation applies the same rules for other subscriptions. The partner of record validation rules are documented in the working with distributors learn topic.

EST price lists

Extended service term SKUs allow for more flexibility for partners that don't want to renew to the regular subscription or cancel at the end of their subscription's term. These SKUs have a slightly higher price but offer the flexibility of canceling at any point after converting to the extended service terms. The EST price list is a district price list that includes all the EST product SKUs for a given market. The EST price list is available in the pricing workspace, alongside the regular license-based and end of sale license-based price lists. Partners won't convert to EST SKUs until the enforcement date, but having the EST price list available starting February 1, 2026 helps partners get an early look at the SKUs and prices available later. This early availability of the EST price list gives partners have months to evaluate these SKUs ahead of time.

EST subscriptions behave like any monthly term license-based subscription. Pricing is applied to the term when it's created. The prices holds true for the term. At the end of the month, if the term renews to another month, the price at the time of renewal is appied to the new term. Price changes in the middle of the term are only applied for new terms created going forward.

Important details about the EST price lists

• EST SKUs are available via a specific EST price list. EST SKUs can't be purchased outright and aren't converted to unless the partner's subscriptions are configured to EST at the end of the term.
• EST SKU price lists don't support preview capabilities and include only current month availability and pricing. Future revisions of EST price lists may add or introduce price change previews and the add, change, and delete tracking.
• Partners get EST pricing data by calling the price list APIs, passing EST sheet value licensebasedest for PricesheetView.
• EST SKUs are also available in the offer list matrix with Extended Service Term in their title.

EST price lists data

API details

Partners have two new scenario paths for EST. One path allows the partner to set the subscription to go to EST at the end of the term. The other option allows a partner to explicitly cancel the subscription at the end of the term.

Set to EST at end of term

Partners use the partner center user interface subscription details page to view and update subscription properties. These properties include whether an EST-eligible subscription renews, goes to EST, or cancels at the end of the subscription's term. Partners also can call the Partner Center API updateSubscription to select the end of term outcome.

Partners set the schedultType to TermEnd and the actionType to RenewToExtendedServiceTerm to ensure the subscription moves to EST at the end of the subscription.

Request

{
  "autoRenewEnabled": true,
  "scheduledActions": [
    {
      "scheduleType": "TermEnd",
      "actionType": "RenewToExtendedServiceTerm"
    }
  ]
}

Response

{
  "autoRenewEnabled": true,
  "scheduledActions": [
    {
      "scheduledType": "TermEnd",
      "actionType": "RenewToExtendedServiceTerm",
      "effectiveDate": "2026-12-31T00:00:00.000Z",
      "instructions": {
        "product": {
          "productId": "CFQ7TTC0ZSXT",
          "skuId": "0002",
          "availabilityId": "CFQ7TTC0K5KQ",
          "billingCycle": "monthly",
          "termDuration": "P1M",
        },
        "quantity": 25,
      }
    }
  ]
}

Cancel at end of term

Partners set scheduleType to TermEnd with the actionType Cancel. autoRenewEnabled can be false or null. Attempting to cancel passing autorenew to true results in an error response. Setting a term end to cancel doesn't trigger a partner of record validation check for distributor reseller partner ids.

Request

{
  "scheduledActions": [
    {
      "scheduleType": "TermEnd",
      "actionType": "Cancel"
    }
  ]
}

Response

{
  "autoRenewEnabled": false,
  "scheduledActions": [
    {
      "actionType": "Cancel",
      "effectiveDate": "2026-12-31T00:00:00.000Z",
    }
  ]
}

Use scheduledActions to set next term instructions (scheduled changes)

The scheduledActions must be used to explicitly set the base subscriptions to EST or Cancel at the end of the term if the subscription is eligible for EST. Partners can also set the scheduledActions RenewToNewTerm instructions instead of previous scheduledNextTermInstructions.

Partners using scheduledActions should avoid also passing scheduledNextTermInstructions. Partners can pass both but should realize that only scheduledActions are considered. Partners can continue to pass only scheduledNextTermInstructions for setting next term instructions.

Partners passing scheduledActions for subscriptions not eligible for EST, as outlined in this document, will be ignored. Here's an example of passing next term instructions using only scheduledActions. In this case, scheduledNextTermInstructions are also set.

scheduledActions isn't used to change a trials end of term, partners need to use next term instructions for that.

Request

{
  "autoRenewEnabled": true,
  "scheduledActions": [
    {
      "scheduledType": "TermEnd",
      "actionType": "RenewToNewTerm",
      "instructions": {
        "product": {
          "productId": "CFQ7TTC0LHXH",
          "skuId": "0001",
          "availabilityId": "CFQ7TTC0LHXH",
          "billingCycle": "annual",
          "termDuration": "P1Y",
          "promotionId": "39NFJQT20KJ2:0001:39NFJQT1Q5KK"
        },
        "quantity": 25,
        "customTermEndDate": "2027-11-31T23:59:59.000Z"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Response

{
  "autoRenewEnabled": true,
  "scheduledNextTermInstructions" : {
     "product": {
        "productId": "CFQ7TTC0LHXH",
        "skuId": "0001",
        "availabilityId": "CFQ7TTC0LHXH",
        "billingCycle": "annual",
        "termDuration": "P1Y",
        "promotionId": "39NFJQT20KJ2:0001:39NFJQT1Q5KK"
      },
      "quantity": 25,
      "customTermEndDate": "2027-11-31T23:59:59.000Z"
  },
  "scheduledActions":   "scheduledActions": [
    {
      "scheduledType": "TermEnd",
      "actionType": "RenewToNewTerm",
      "instructions": {
        "product": {
          "productId": "CFQ7TTC0LHXH",
          "skuId": "0001",
          "availabilityId": "CFQ7TTC0LHXH",
          "billingCycle": "annual",
          "termDuration": "P1Y",
          "promotionId": "39NFJQT20KJ2:0001:39NFJQT1Q5KK"
        },
        "quantity": 25,
        "customTermEndDate": "2027-11-31T23:59:59.000Z"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Get the EST SKU information from the base SKU

Partners can get the EST SKU details for their EST eligible subscription by including readAssociatedSkus and associationTypes parameters for the getSKU details path.

Request

{{baseUrl}}/v1/customers/8ec6911f-3759-4f7e-b0ae-804caed50666/products/CFQ7TTC0ZSXT/skus/0001?readAssociatedSkus=true&associationTypes=ExtendedServiceTerm

Response

{
  "id": "0001",
  "productId": "CFQ7TTC0ZSXT",
  "title": "EST Test Base SKU - Microsoft 365 E5",
  --- 
  "associatedSkus": [
    {
      "associationType": "ExtendedServiceTerm",
      "sku": {
        "id": "0002",
        "productId": "CFQ7TTC0ZSXT",
        ---
        "categories": ["ExtendedServiceTerm"],
        "benefits": [
          {
            "benefitType": "BaseSku",
            "benefitValue": "CFQ7TTC0ZSXT:0001"
          }
        ],

Get the base SKU details from the EST SKU

Partners can get the details of the base SKU by querying the EST SKU details

Request

{{baseUrl}}/v1/customers/8ec6911f-3759-4f7e-b0ae-804caed50666/products/CFQ7TTC0ZSXT/skus/0001

Response

{
  "id": "0002",
  "productId": "CFQ7TTC0ZSXT",
  "title": "EST Test Base SKU - Microsoft 365 E5 - Extended Service Term",
  "description": "EST Test Base SKU - Microsoft 365 E5",
  "minimumQuantity": 1,
  "maximumQuantity": 10000000,
  "isTrial": false,
  "supportedBillingCycles": ["monthly"],
  "purchasePrerequisites": ["MicrosoftCloudAgreement"],
  . . .
  "categories": ["ExtendedServiceTerm"],
  "benefits": [
    {
      "benefitType": "BaseSku",
      "benefitValue": "CFQ7TTC0ZSXT:0001"
    }
  ],

Webhook support for EST

Partners can subscribe to webhooks to be alerted for changes to different objects in the partner center. These programmatic alerts enable a partner to keep their data up to date if it changes instead of querying potentially millions of items continually. Partners can learn more by reading the webhooks documentation.

Two important webhooks related to EST:

Subscription updated event webhook enables partners to receive an event when a subscription is changed. The subscription update webhook allows the partner to query the subscription and update their cache with the current subscription properties, including the end of term settings. End of term settings for EST could be regular renewals, cancel, or renewing to an extended service term. EST conversion web hook enables partners to receive notifications when a subscription is changed from autorenew false to extended service term. API requests to set a subscription to auto renew false without an explicit nextTerm cancelation is converted to EST to retain customer services.

EST conversion webhook

API requests to set a subscription to auto renew false without an explicit next term cancelation is converted to EST to retain customer services. The partner center runs backfill conversion tasks to detect these requests and convert them to EST.

Properties

Autorenew false

Subscriptions eligible for EST with auto renew false, without cancel details, are converted to EST at the end of the term. This change is happening to ensure customers continue service at the end of the term, similar to how grace periods enabled services for 30 days after the term. Partners that need to cancel the subscription must explicitly update the subscriptions to cancel, using the scheduleActions syntax via the API (or using the Partner Center user interface to set the cancel on the subscription details page.

API requests setting auto renew to false initially are returned with auto renew false to preserve backward compatibility for the API calls. Initially, auto renew false API requests include a cancel at end of term response. However, unless a declared hard cancel is also sent via the initial request, these requests are to EST via a background process, usually taking a few hours. Subscriptions converted to have EST at end of term have auto renew set to true. After EST features are available, partners can always change extended service terms to hard cancel if they decide to.

Regular subscriptions versus EST capabilities

An EST functions as renewing monthly subscription but provide more flexibility allowing a partner to cancel at any time or convert back to the base SKU or higher upgraded SKUs. Capabilities available for EST subscriptions:

Subscription changes when EST is set

Partners who set their eligible subscription to go to EST at the end of the term can continue to make changes to the subscription during the term. These immediate changes don't remove or alter the end of term selection. Partners can change license counts, terms, and billing plans as long as they align to the documented immediate change rules). ESTs are also upgradable to higher SKUs. These changes to not modify the EST end of term selection. Partners can change EST to renew or cancel after making any mid-term changes.

Upgrading out of EST

EST subscriptions can be converted to other SKUs. These conversions may be upgrades to higher SKUs or may be back to the same SKU the EST represents, or the SKU the subscription aligned to before it moved to EST. All conversions or upgrades follow the existing rules for upgrades, with exceptions highlighted in the regular vs EST line items in this document.

• Partners can coterm the conversion target as long as it complies to the documented coterm rules.
• Partners can reduce the seat count for the conversion.
• Partners get a new cancelation window after the upgrade.
• The resulting subscription retains the EST subscription ID. Converting out of EST to a regular SKU will result in a new full term. The full term length depends on the SKU's available terms and the partner's selection when converting. The start date will align with when the conversion happens.

Suspend and reactivate

Partners can suspend and reactivate subscriptions. These actions allow partners to stop customer services in cases of customer-partner billing disputes. Suspend and reactivation of subscriptions before the end of term sets the newly active subscription to EST. Partners can change that to any of the three end of term options if desired (renew, cancel, EST).

Subscriptions in the suspended state when their term ends default to cancel without services (disabled). This state can't be reverted back to active. Canceled subscriptions retain their 90 day data retention for cases of administrators wanting to backup date or continue services later via new purchases of the same services.

Transferring EST subscriptions

Subscriptions that move to EST aren't eligible for the partner to partner transfer capability. Partners have two options to move services for a subscription in EST to another partner:

• Manual purchase and cancel: Since EST subscriptions can be canceled at any time, target partners can purchase the new SKU the EST supports as a new subscription. The source partner can safely cancel the EST subscription. This option requires close coordination and timing.
• Convert to regular SKU and then transfer: The recommended approach is the source partner converts the EST subscription back to the base SKU subscription. The newly created subscription can then be transferred using the partner to partner transfer capabilities.

Some SKUs have a 300 seat limit, prohibiting a new subscription purchase (above the limit under a new partner. However, the 300 SKU limit doesn't prevent a partner to partner transfer before end of term. Partners are recommended to complete P2P transfers for subscriptions with a 300 seat limit before end of term to ensure continuity of service. Partners with subscriptions already in EST can convert back to the standard SKU and then transfer the subscription. More information about EST defaults can be found in the EST FAQ and partner briefing deck.

Grace periods for subscriptions.

Subscriptions eligible and updated to go to EST help ensure customers retain services. Partners can set subscriptions to cancel at the end of the term without services. There are cases where partners upgrade subscriptions to higher SKUs that contain services no longer needed in some of their other subscriptions. Partners may upgrade a subscription to a higher SKU and then set the other subscriptions with redundant services, supported by the new higher SKU, to cancel at end of term. The system retains grace periods in these scenarios where an upgrade is performed but redundant subscriptions are canceled, allowing partners extra time after the cancelation to ensure the customer's license assignments are correct. For example, a partner has two subscriptions: Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Microsoft Entra ID P1. The partner upgrades Business Basic to Business Premium and sets the Entra subscription to cancel at end of term. After the upgrade, we ensure the Entra subscription still has services available for 30 days to enable the partner to reassign licenses.

Subscriptions show information on how much grace period a subscription has after its term isn't renewed. This capability is available at a later date before EST enforcement occurs.

Promotions and incentives

EST SKU subscriptions behave similar to other license-based subscriptions. EST subscriptions provide partners more flexibility to cancel at any time. Subscriptions that renew to EST terms don't automatically carry over the previous subscription's promotions. It's possible some EST SKUs may include promotions themselves, and partners should consult the promotion's guide for this information. However, a customer's current promotions should be taken into account when deciding to go to EST or not.

Incentives and payouts for EST term subscriptions function like any other paid subscriptions.

Billing and recon files for EST

Billing and recon file data for EST charges is consistent with other paid subscriptions. Partners can identify ESTs in the recon file by their SKU name (includes 'extended service term') or by matching the SKUIDs from the EST price lists.

Mid-term changes for conversions follow the existing patterns for these actions already supported for other SKUs.

EST cancelations prorate the amounts based on the day the EST was canceled. Partners only pay for an EST for the amount of time it's active.

Updates log

• February 27, 2026 added a section to describe EST download
• March 2, 2026 added roles required to access customer workspace downloads
• March 2, 2026 updated scheduledActions and nextTermInstructions, how they work when both are passed, added guidance on usage
• March 2, 2026 added details for upgrading out of EST to monthly subscriptions, including how the term length works
• March 2, 2026 included minor change for benefits values results from getSKU to delimit products and SKUs with colons instead of slashes
• March 9, 2026 updated the specialized offer avilability dates from March 9 to March 13
• March 19, 2026 updated specialized offer EST SKU and backfill status
• March 19, 2026 added clarity around whether EST status is included in getSubscriptions, added details about using scheduledActions for trial end of term behavior

Future enhancements and changes to be announced

More capabilities are planned to improve EST adoption for CSP Partners.

• Enable a partner to get grace period for SKUs that aren't eligible for EST initially. There are cases after an upgrade happens where the left behind SKU subscriptions retain grace period. This post cancelation grace period enables license reassignments after the upgrades. Visibility for partners for these extended grace periods is expected to be available for EST feature availability dates.

Related content

Related topics don't yet reflect the EST functionality. These topics are updated when EST feature availability is released.

• Update subscription API
• Creating and managing subscriptions
• Current CSP subscription lifecycle states
• Manage term duration and billing frequency
• Using APIs to configure scheduled changes