If you want to collaborate with people outside of your organization in Teams, team owners can add them as a guest. Guests have fewer capabilities than team members, but there's still a lot they can do. For a deeper look, see Guest capabilities in Teams.

Note: Before guests can join a team, an admin must enable guest access in Teams. If you can't add a guest, check with your admin.

Add a guest to your team

  1. Hover over the team name and select More options More options button​​​​​​​> Add member Teams add member to chat

  2. Enter the guest's email address. Anyone with a business or consumer email account, such as Outlook, Gmail, or others, can join your team as a guest. Select their email again to confirm. 

    Note: If you receive a "We didn't find any matches" error while trying to add a guest, your organization doesn't allow guests. ​​​​​​​​​​​

  3. Add your guest's name by selecting Add (name) as a guest?. Be sure to do this now—you’ll need the help of an IT admin to do it later.

  4. Select Add. Guests will receive a welcome email invitation that includes some information about joining Teams and what the guest experience is like

Note: When you add a guest, only their name gets added to their profile card. To add or change other info (such as phone number or title), you'll need to contact your IT admin.

After you add a guest to a team, it may take a few hours before they have access. Guests from outside your org receive an emailed invitation to join the team. They can only access the team after accepting the invitation.

Identify guests on a team

You can tell if someone is a guest if the word “Guest” appears after their name. You can also see everyone’s roles in the Members tab of a team. Go to the team name, and select More options More options button> Manage team Settings button > Members.

Switch guest accounts in Teams

Go to Account manager by selecting your profile picture in Teams and select the team or guest account you want.

Guests are added to your organization's Azure Active Directory as B2B collaboration users. They must sign in to Teams using their guest account. If they normally use Teams with another Microsoft 365 organization, they need to switch organizations in Teams to interact with your organization.

Related topics

Set guest permissions for channels

Team owner, member, and guest capabilities

Guests and shared channels

Need more help?

Want more options?

Explore subscription benefits, browse training courses, learn how to secure your device, and more.