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October 2025 announcements

This page provides the announcements for Microsoft Partner Center for October 2025.

Now Live! Partner Center blog series: October 2025 edition

The Partner Center October blog: Strengthening security and customer trust with technical and API changes is now live.

  • Date: October 7, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: All partners

This blog covers the following key areas

  • Recent improvements to keep your business secure, compliant - and growing
  • Upcoming API and technical changes
  • Protect your business continuity and strengthen customer trust

Previous Partner Center blog editions

Next steps

Check out all the partner blogs

Monthly Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program update

What’s new for Solutions Partner designations, specializations, and other Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program offerings and benefits.

  • Announcement date: October 8, 2025
  • Workspace: Membership
  • Impacted audience: Partners enrolled in the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program

Summary

This month’s updates continue to enhance partner differentiation and readiness across high-demand solution areas. Key changes include specialization updates that integrate AI capabilities, revised skilling and performance requirements, and streamlined qualification frameworks to support partner growth and agility.

Available now

  • Important change to the process for requesting MAF and standard partner certification letters:

    Starting October 1, 2025, we're updating our process for issuing manufacturer’s authorization form (MAF) letters and standard partner certification letters and will no longer issue them based solely on Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program membership, which on its own doesn't provide authorization to transact.

    If you're a Microsoft reseller who purchases through an authorized Microsoft distributor, contact your distributor to request MAF and certification letters through them, as they can provide transaction confirmation.

    If you're an authorized Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partner, open a support ticket in Partner Center to request these letters. Partners with an active Channel Partner Agreement (CPA) can continue to create these letters through Microsoft Partner Center as documented in this Microsoft Learn article.

  • Updates to the Systems Applications and Products (SAP) on Microsoft Azure specialization:

    To better support evolving partner capabilities and solution delivery, the Run SAP on Microsoft Cloud training path has been added as a skilling requirement, which is validated during the audit process.

New Partner of Record (POR) readiness resources available to help distributors and indirect resellers prepare for validation changes

It’s time to prepare for POR API enforcement beginning December 1, 2025 (date extended from September).

  • Date: October 7, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) distributors and indirect resellers preparing for POR API enforcement.

Details

New readiness resources are available to help distributors and indirect resellers prepare for POR validation changes before they take effect on December 1, 2025.

At that time, POR validation will be required on new subscription orders and changes to existing subscriptions, such as adjustments to license count, billing plan, term, partner-to-partner (P2P) transfers, and legacy-to-new commerce migrations. Subscriptions using autorenew aren’t impacted.

For distributors

For indirect resellers

Next steps

Review and use these readiness resources to prepare:

  • Distributor checklist: Run through pre-enforcement tasks like enabling POR API checks, mapping error handling, and briefing your reseller network ahead of December 1, 2025
  • Indirect reseller checklist: Confirm PLA IDs, tenant status, and regional alignment, and fix common issues before you transact
  • POR FAQ: Get clear answers on validation rules and error codes, and align support scripts and partner communications
  • POR source pack: Train your teams and resellers with ready-to-use slides and talking points to use during enablement sessions
  • POR API survey: Report your integration status and blockers so we can prioritize guidance and help you meet the December 1, 2025, timeline

Global changes to Microsoft 365 and Teams pricing and packaging

2025 European Commission Settlement Changes.

  • Announcement date: October 6, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: All CSP partners

Details

On September 12, 2025, Microsoft finalized an agreement with the European Commission (Microsoft’s “Commitments”) regarding Microsoft 365 and Teams, in which we'll expand interoperability and data portability resources and make other changes to licensing, pricing, and discounting practices for Microsoft 365, Office 365, and Microsoft Teams. These changes are designed to enhance flexibility, support open ecosystems, and give customers more options to meet their unique needs. You can read more in the partner blog post.

A few important changes will take effect beginning November 1, 2025:

  • Microsoft will reintroduce the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 Enterprise suites with Teams into the GA lifecycle state. All customers will once again have the option to transition to or purchase subscriptions for Microsoft 365 and Office 365 Enterprise suites with Teams

  • To implement the required price deltas between Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites with and without Teams, Microsoft will decrease the price of Enterprise and Business suites without Teams and Microsoft 365 F3 (MF3) without Teams, and will increase the price of Teams Enterprise standalone

  • These packaging and pricing changes were included in the November 1, 2025, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) price list preview (available October 1, 2025).

    Note

    The current price deltas on the price list preview for all currencies don’t fully align with the Commitments, but this will be corrected in the November 1 CSP price list.

  • Microsoft is enabling partners to offer the same guarantees on these changes to customers. Partners can choose how to reflect them to customers

Next steps

Become familiar with the Settlement changes and what they mean for partners and customers by reviewing the partner blog and partner resource gallery.

New Targeted Microsoft 365 E3 Annual Cloud Solution Provider Promotion and Extended Microsoft 365 E5 15% Off Accelerate Annual Promotion

  • Date: October 3, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: All Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) Partners transacting Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365

Extended! Microsoft 365 E5 15% Off Accelerate Annual Promo through December 31, 2025

Launched January 1, 2025, the Microsoft 365 E5 15% Off promotion helped drive upsell conversation with new-to-M365 E5 customers. To help our CSP Partners continue building momentum, we’ve extended this promotion through December 31, 2025 to provide powerful, best-in-class cloud productivity solutions with advanced security and compliance capabilities. For additional details on this business accelerator, review the Global Promo Readiness Guide and Offer FAQ PDF download.

Announcing New Targeted Microsoft 365 E3 Annual CSP Promotion- 20% off

We're excited to announce the new Targeted Microsoft 365 E3 Annual CSP Promotion available starting October 13, 2025 through December 31, 2025. This new limited-time targeted promotion will provide 20% off the net partner price of Microsoft 365 E3 for eligible customers with at least 500 base licenses of O365/M365, 20% off Microsoft 365 E3 annual subscriptions with a minimum purchase of 250+ licenses. This offer is designed to support those ready to scale Microsoft 365 E3 adoption across their organizations, for best-in-class productivity with core security and compliance capabilities.

Customer eligibility

  • Select organizations with at least 500 base licenses of O365/M365
  • CSP as primary purchase channel
  • Fewer than 50 preexisting ME3/ME5 user subscriptions or licenses in any channel
  • Partners will be able to download customer eligibility lists through Cloud Ascent on October 25

Offer details

  • Discount: 20% off net partner price of Microsoft 365 E3, Microsoft 365 E3 (no Teams), and Microsoft 365 E3 European Economic Area (EEA) for eligible customers on annual subscriptions
  • Billing Options: Annual commitment with annual or monthly billing
  • Availability: Available from October 13, 2025 through December 31, 2025
  • Deal Min: 250+ licenses minimum order size

Next steps

Mandatory multifactor authentication in Partner Center is here

Review the timeline and guidance to ensure your organization complies with the requirements.

  • Date: October 1, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: All partners

To improve the overall security of Partner Center and protect against unauthorized access, we’re finalizing mandatory multifactor authentication (MFA) across all Partner Center portal pages and APIs.

  • As of August 30, 2025, MFA is required for all pages in the Partner Center portal. This means that every time a partner logs in, they need to provide an additional verification step beyond their username and password.
  • By September 30, 2025, all APIs will be MFA-enabled and ready for partner testing. Partners need to integrate MFA into their API calls, ensuring that their systems can handle the additional authentication step.
  • Full enforcement of MFA for APIs will begin on April 1, 2026, meaning that any API calls made without MFA will be blocked. This requires partners to update their systems to comply with the new security requirements.

Partners need to plan and allocate resources to update their systems and ensure compliance with the new MFA requirements.

Your continued support and cooperation are essential to ensuring that our products, solutions, and processes remain secure and compliant.

Next steps

For more information, see Mandating multifactor authentication (MFA) for your partner tenant.

October Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) monthly updates and community reminder

Monthly views are now published including the updated partner launch calendars, the CSP Bimonthly Update newsletter, along with additional CSP community resources that provide you with essential program updates.

  • Date: October 1, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: CSP direct bill partners and indirect providers

Always available—Launch content on demand

For a consolidated view of all recent and active launches in a single place, visit the partner launch calendars collection. You'll find a timeline for each launch and links to published materials to help you learn more about that launch.

The downloadable CSP Bimonthly Update newsletter which aggregates recent CSP announcements, updates, events, and reminders in an easy-to-read document.

Partner Journey Maps provide detailed navigation along the journey of Microsoft’s highest priority transformations.

Need licensing readiness? The monthly CSP spotlight webinars cover the latest CSP licensing information available for all partners.

CSP Community Q&A reminder

The monthly CSP community Q&A session provides you with an opportunity to learn more and ask questions about changes affecting the program.

Register here to join upcoming calls.

Next steps

Review the Partner Launch Calendar, monthly newsletter, and register for upcoming Community Q&A calls.

Questions?

The monthly CSP community Q&A call is the best place to bring questions about operational change in the CSP program. You may submit a question up to 48 hours before the call.

Questions on any other CSP topic? Visit the Partner Center support page.

Ensure your Partner Center data is accurate to avoid restrictions

Action required: Ensure your tax and bank information is accurate.

  • Date: October 1. 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Partners should update their profile information by October 15, 2025, to avoid account restrictions.

Microsoft is required by law to adhere to certain standards and regulations when collecting, processing, storing, and sharing data. However, some partner data we’ve received is inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated. Correct your information before October 15, 2025, to avoid account restrictions—including the inability to receive payments.

Inaccurate partner data poses a serious threat to our business performance, reputation, and legal obligations. To address this, we are asking all Microsoft partners to take the following actions:

  • Adopt a data quality framework that ensures all information entered to Microsoft systems meets the compliance requirements outlined in the Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA).
  • Conduct regular data quality audits to assess the current state of your data and identify root causes of any issues.
  • Implement corrective and preventive actions to resolve identified issues and prevent recurrence

Compliance requirements include:

  • Organization: Full legal name, legal address (Line 1, City, Country), and valid business identifier (where applicable). Examples of business identifiers: VAT ID, business registration number, etc..
  • Individual: First and last name, address (Line 1, City, Country), and valid business identifier (where applicable).

Next steps

Sign in to Partner Center and ensure that all required fields in your tax and bank profiles are complete and accurate. To update:

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Settings (gear) icon.
  2. Go to Account settings > Payout and tax profiles.
  3. Locate the relevant profile and select Edit to make updates. Be sure to check all five portions of your tax profile: Core Details, Business Profile, Tax Residence Country/Region, Other Documentation, and Tax Form.

Deadline: Complete these updates no later than October 15, 2025, to avoid account restrictions—including the inability to receive payments—or other enforcement actions. 

Questions

If you have any questions, contact your standard support channels in Partner Center.

Four New Deployment Accelerator Workshops Available for Security Partners

Deployment Accelerators are post-sales programs that help partners encourage adoption of advanced security solutions.

  • Date: October 1, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: All Microsoft Partners

Deployment Accelerators are post-sales programs that help partners encourage adoption of advanced security solutions. Partners earn funding when customers reach deployment and usage milestones, with incentives based on scale and growth. Microsoft co-invests to offset costs and speed up sales cycles for eligible customers.

As of October 1, 2025 Security Partners can choose from four workshops: CSP Deployment Accelerator for Defender and Purview Suites, CSP Deployment Accelerator for ME3/ME5, Microsoft Sentinel Accelerator, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Accelerator.

Next steps

For details on customer qualifications and partner eligibility, see Microsoft Security Deployment Accelerators.

Microsoft Sentinel 50GB commitment tier in public preview

New Microsoft Sentinel 50GB commitment tier and promotion.

  • Date: October 1, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Security Partners: EA, CSP, and Direct Resellers

Microsoft is launching a new 50GB commitment tier for Microsoft Sentinel, available in public preview with promotional pricing from October 1, 2025, through March 31, 2026. Customers who purchase during this window will lock in pricing until March 31, 2027. This offer provides a cost-effective and more predictable pricing model for the small and medium enterprise customers—ideal for indirect resellers who serve this segment. Get up to 32%* off pay-as-you-go price with Microsoft Sentinel 50-GB commitment tier promotion.

The 50-GB promotional tier is available in all regions where Microsoft Sentinel is sold. The promotion can be used with existing or new purchases of Microsoft Sentinel. The promotion cannot be combined with other Microsoft Sentinel discounts *Maximum discount available is region dependent.

Next steps

Microsoft renaming its Microsoft 365 E5 mini-suites

Beginning on October 1, 2025, Microsoft will be renaming its Microsoft 365 E5 mini-suites.

  • Date: October 1, 2025
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: All partners

Beginning on October 1, 2025, Microsoft will be renaming its Microsoft 365 E5 mini-suites. Microsoft 365 E5 Security becomes the Microsoft Defender Suite, and Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance becomes the Microsoft Purview Suite.

These suites allow organizations to effectively handle external cyber threats and internal data risks through a single, integrated solution.

Microsoft Defender Suite

  • Entra ID P2: Risk-based conditional access, visibility into risky sign-ins and user behavior anomalies. ID Governance and Privileged Identity Mgmt.
  • Defender for Identity: A cloud-based identity security solution that uses your on-premises Active Directory signals to identify, detect, and investigate advanced threats, compromised identities, and malicious insider actions directed at your organization.
  • MDO P2: Advanced email and collaboration security with automated investigation and response, and end user phishing simulation trainings​.
  • MDE P2: Endpoint security and EDR with advanced threat hunting, and access to threat experts for more investigations.​
  • Defender for Cloud Apps: SaaS security solution to automatically discover and block apps based on risk level, unusual user activity, or data-sharing behavior to protect against sophisticated SaaS-based attacks.

Microsoft Purview Suite

  • Automatically discover, classify and label sensitive data, and prevent its unauthorized use across apps, services, and devices with integrated Information Protection and DLP.​
  • Understand user intent around use of sensitive data and defend against insider risks with Insider Risk Management and Adaptive Protection to automatically adapt policies based on risk level.​
  • Protect Microsoft 365 Copilot data from accidental oversharing, data leaks, or noncompliance usage.​
  • Drive adherence to common industry and regional regulations (for example EU AI Act, ISO, etc.) with prebuilt templates in Compliance Manager​.
  • Streamline your response to events and investigations with Audit retention policies and Audit insights and drive investigation efficiencies with eDiscovery workflows and analytics.