Important:
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After April 12, 2023, Microsoft is retiring Microsoft Teams Free (classic), the legacy free Teams app for business. Microsoft is making this change to invest in a single free Teams experience across personal and small business. For over a year, Microsoft has only allowed new customers to sign up for the new Microsoft Teams (free).
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You may switch to using the new free version of Teams, however, you’ll have access to a different set of features than you did with Microsoft Teams Free (classic), and your data won’t be retained (including data for existing channels, chats, and recurring meetings).
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If you want to keep your data and continue using Teams, you can upgrade your users to a paid Teams license using the information provided in this article.
What comes with an upgrade?
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Users may upgrade to either a fully featured Microsoft 365 subscription, or for a simpler and more affordable option, Microsoft Teams Essentials.
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The full set of Teams features, including scheduled meetings, calendar, 1 TB of file storage, and advanced administration features.
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There's no data loss during the upgrade—all your teams, chats, files, and permissions come with you!
Things to keep in mind before you upgrade
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When you upgrade, your entire org comes along for the ride! However, this means that all users in your org must be upgraded—we don’t support a mix of paid and free users. Learn more about managing and removing members
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You have to upgrade to a new Microsoft 365 subscription. Merging Teams Free (classic) into an existing Microsoft 365 paid subscription is not supported.
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If your org has more than 300 users, you'll need to upgrade to one of our enterprise licenses, such as Office 365 E1. Upgrade to Office 365 E1
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If you already have an existing Microsoft 365 license, follow these instructions to assign paid Teams licenses.
Upgrade your org
Note: You'll need to upgrade all users within your organization. If there are users you don't want to upgrade, remove them before starting the upgrade.
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Learn more about licenses and choose a product that works for you and your org.
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Follow the instructions to purchase licenses and receive your temporary domain (such as contoso.onmicrosoft.com). You'll be given the opportunity to create a custom domain later in the upgrade process.
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After upgrading, visit the admin portal to update your org members' user names and reset their passwords. This will allow them to use the full versions of Teams and Microsoft 365. Admins should follow this guide to learn more about upgrading from a Teams Free (classic) to a paid subscrition.
Looking for other plans?
If you want to upgrade your Teams Free (classic) org to a different plan, such as Office 365 Enterprise E3, follow this process:
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Upgrade to Office 365 E3 using the instructions here.
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Log in to the admin portal after completing the upgrade process and follow the instructions at Switch to a different Microsoft 365 for business plan.
Check if you're using Teams Free (classic)
There's a simple way to check if you're currently using Microsoft Teams Free (classic):
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Open Microsoft Teams and select your profile picture in the top right hand corner of the app.
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You'll see Microsoft Teams Free (classic) at the top of the menu.
Org members will also see a banner at the top of their chats to let them know that Teams Free (classic) is going away.
Related links
Learn more about managing your org and removing team members
