Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo

The Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo Capabilities add-on ("Multi-Geo") provides enterprise customers with the ability to expand their Microsoft 365 presence to multiple geographic regions ("Geographies") within a single existing Microsoft 365 Tenant. Customers must license Multi-Geo through the Enterprise Agreement, Web Direct, or CSP channels.

Multi-Geo is intended for enterprise customers who need to store data in multiple Geographies to satisfy data residency requirements, while retaining single-tenant administration and full-fidelity collaboration experiences between users as necessary.

Multi-Geo enables customers to manage and store in-scope data at a user level for Microsoft 365 Core Services including Exchange Online, SharePoint/OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat. In addition, Multi-Geo can be used with shared resources including SharePoint sites, Microsoft 365 Groups, Shared Mailboxes, or Microsoft Teams teams.

Customers that require performance optimization for Microsoft 365 should refer to Network planning and performance tuning for Microsoft 365 or contact their Support group.

For a video introduction on Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo, see SharePoint and OneDrive Multi-Geo to control where your data resides.

Multi-Geo architecture

In a Multi-Geo environment, a Microsoft 365 Tenant consists of a Primary Provisioned Geography (where a customer's Microsoft 365 subscription was originally provisioned) and one or more Satellite Geography locations. In a Multi-Geo enabled Tenant, the information about Geography locations, groups, and user information, is mastered in Microsoft Entra ID. Because a customer's Tenant information is mastered centrally and synchronized into each Geography ___location, sharing and experiences involving anyone from a customer's organization contain global awareness.

Licensing

Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo is available as an add-on to the following Microsoft 365 subscription plans:

• Microsoft 365 F1, F3, E3, or E5
• Office 365 F3, E1, E3, or E5
• Standalone Exchange Online Plan 1 or Plan 2
• Standalone OneDrive Plan 1 or Plan 2
• Standalone SharePoint Plan 1 or Plan 2

Minimum Licensing

Enterprise Agreement customers must purchase a quantity of Multi-Geo licenses equal to or greater than 5% of their total eligible Microsoft 365 users. Similarly, CSP partners must purchase and assign a quantity of Multi-Geo licenses equal to or greater than 5% of their customers' total eligible Microsoft 365 users. For enterprise customers, user subscription licenses must be on the same Enterprise Agreement as the Multi-Geo Services licenses. Customers should contact their Microsoft account team for details.

Note that Small Business products do not currently qualify for Multi-Geo, even if they contain elements of the above list.

Multi-Geo Capabilities in Microsoft 365 is a user-level add-on license. Customers need a license for each user that they want to host in a Satellite Geography ___location. Customers can add more licenses over time as they add users in Satellite Geography locations.

There are no Multi-Geo licenses specific to shared resources such as SharePoint Sites, Microsoft 365 Groups, Shared Mailboxes, or Microsoft Teams teams. If enough Multi-Geo user licenses have been acquired, then customers are eligible to use Multi-Geo with shared resources without limitation.

Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo availability

Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo is currently offered in these Geographies:

To learn more about the definition of each Geography, such as what countries or cities contain the data centers, see Overview and Definitions.

Customers that utilize Microsoft Purview eDiscovery Standard or Premium should refer to Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo eDiscovery configuration and Set up compliance boundaries for eDiscovery investigations for additional information on region usage and data storage as it relates to Microsoft Purview eDiscovery.

Getting started

Whether you are a CSP partner managing your customer’s Microsoft 365 subscriptions or an Enterprise Agreement customer managing your own subscriptions, you can follow these steps to get started with Multi-Geo:

1. Ensure that you purchase Multi-Geo for at least 5% of the total eligible users in your Microsoft 365 subscription. Remember that you'll need a license for each user you want to host in a Satellite Geography ___location.

2. Before you can start using Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo, Microsoft needs to configure your Tenant for Multi-Geo support. This one-time automatic configuration process is triggered after you order the Multi-Geo Capabilities in Microsoft 365 and the licenses show up in your Tenant. You'll receive service-specific notifications in the Microsoft 365 message center once the Tenant has completed the configuration process for each service, and then you may begin configuring and using your Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo Capabilities. The time required to configure a Tenant for Multi-Geo support varies from Tenant to Tenant, but most Tenants finish within a month after receipt of the feature licenses. Larger or more complex Tenants may require more time to complete the configuration process.

3. Read Plan your multi-geo environment.

4. Learn about administering a multi-geo environment and how your users will experience the environment.

5. When you're ready to set up Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo, configure your tenant for multi-geo.

6. Set up search.

See also

Multi-Geo in Exchange Online and OneDrive

Multi-Geo Capabilities in OneDrive and SharePoint

Multi-Geo Capabilities in Exchange Online

Teams experience in a multi-geo environment