How to use the complimentary Azure credits in a Microsoft 365 developer tenant — step by step

Last updated on December 9, 2023

If you are a developer like me, there’s a good chance that you have some kind of a Visual Studio subscription (previously known as the MSDN subscription). With that, you can get a certain amount of free Azure credits per month. Woohoo!

If you’ve ever needed to use Visual Studio IDE and/or Azure DevOps Services at work, your employer has probably assigned you a Visual Studio subscription. Either they’ve paid for it or they’ve got it through the Microsoft Partner Network.

Or perhaps you are an MVP or MCT? I am a Microsoft MVP (Office Development category) and an MCT (for Developers), both of which give me access to a Visual Studio Enterprise license, which again gives me 150$/130€ worth of credits per month. Azure MVPs have it even better: they get 1000$ worth of free monthly Azure credit to play around with. Nice!

When you go to my.visualstudio.com and browse the benefits that come with your subscription, you are encouraged to activate your Azure credit benefit. When you click on the button, what it does is set up a new tenant for your Microsoft account that is associated with your Visual Studio subscription. The credits are then usable by subscriptions created in that tenant. Now, if you are anything like me, you might have exclaimed “But I wanted to use them in my developer tenant that I got through the Microsoft 365 Developer Program because it also has 25 free E5 licenses!” at this point.

Ever since I started using Microsoft 365 developer tenants, I’ve wondered how to move the complimentary Azure credit to my developer tenant where all of my app development is happening. I heard it was possible, but I could never find a proper guide about it, and there never seemed to be a suitable time to dig into it any deeper than that. Instead, I always focused on being super careful about what app service plans I was using in my developer tenant (consumption or free), so the costs would stay in minimum.

It might have something to do with me being at work while the vast majority of my colleagues and customers are on a summer holiday that I finally got around to investigate this matter in greater detail. And I have good news! I did manage to make my Azure credits usable in my developer tenant, and I want you to be able to do the same. Here’s a thorough step-by-step guide for you; I hope you find it useful. 🙂

How to transfer Azure credits to a separate developer tenant

1. Invite your Microsoft account as a guest to your developer tenant
2. Set up a subscription using the Visual Studio benefit in the non-developer tenant
3. Change the Azure subscription directory to the Microsoft 365 developer tenant
4. Give the developer tenant administrator permissions to the subscription
5. Ensure you can create resources to the new subscription

Invite your Microsoft account as a guest to your developer tenant

1. On the Microsoft 365 developer tenant admin account, go to portal.azure.com.
2. Click on Azure Active Directory in the left-hand navigation.
3. Go to Users.
4. Click on New guest user and send an invitation to your Microsoft account that is connected to your Visual Studio subscription.
5. On your Microsoft account, accept the guest invitation that was sent to your email inbox.

Set up a subscription using the Visual Studio benefit in the non-developer tenant

1. On your Microsoft/Visual Studio subscription account, go to my.visualstudio.com/benefits.
2. Click on the Activate button, and then…
   • If you haven’t activated the benefit before, complete the wizard. This will automatically create a new subscription using the Azure benefit for you. After that, you’ll get directed to Azure portal.
   • If you’ve already activated the Visual Studio benefit in the past, click on View existing subscriptions in Azure portal.

3. On Azure Portal, navigate to the home page if you are not there already.
4. Click on Subscriptions
5. See if a subscription using the Visual Studio benefit is listed here. Uncheck the Show only subscriptions selected in the global subscriptions filter checkbox to see all subscriptions.

If you are unsure whether a subscription is using the Visual Studio benefit or not, click on it and wait a few seconds on the Overview blade. If the subscription is using the credits, a yellow banner should pop up and tell you that you have credits remaining.

If the Subscriptions list has no subscription using the Visual Studio benefit, check the top right corner to ensure that you are in the correct directory. You can click on the filter icon next to it to change it if needed.

If you are in the right place, but still can’t see a subscription for some reason, you can create a new one by:

1. Clicking on the stealthy Add button at top-left.
2. In the “Select an offer” view, select your Visual Studio benefit.

Change the Azure subscription directory to the Microsoft 365 developer tenant

1. While still on Azure Portal with your Microsoft account, click on the subscription that uses the Visual Studio benefit.
2. At the top, click on Change directory.
3. Select your developer tenant from the dropdown. If you can’t see the option, make sure you’ve invited your Microsoft account that is connected to the Visual Studio subscription as a guest to your developer tenant, and also accepted the invitation that was sent to your Microsoft account email (detailed steps covered in an earlier section).
4. Click on Change.

Give the developer tenant administrator permissions to the subscription

If you’d like to be able to create and manage resources in the subscription that is using the Azure credits with the developer tenant administrator account, you need to give it permissions to the subscription.

1. On the Microsoft/Visual Studio subscription account, go to portal.azure.com.
2. Change the directory to the developer tenant via the menu at the top right corner.
3. Go to Subscriptions.
4. Click on the subscription that is using the Visual Studio benefit. Uncheck the Show only subscriptions selected in the global subscriptions filter checkbox to see all subscriptions.
5. Go to the Access control (IAM) blade.
6. Click Add a role assignment.
   • Select Owner as the role.
   • You need to write the developer tenant admin account name/email in full to the text field to be able to select it
7. After selecting the role and the admin account, click on Add.

Ensure you can create resources to the new subscription

1. On the developer tenant admin account, go to portal.azure.com
2. Go to Subscriptions.
3. Check if you can see the Visual Studio benefit subscription in the list. Uncheck the Show only subscriptions selected in the global subscriptions filter checkbox to see all subscriptions. If you still can’t see the subscription, relog/restarting your browser session and try again. When you are able to see the subscription in the list, and your role has been updated to Owner (sometimes there is a short delay) it means you can also create resources to it. If you get an authorization error when attempting to create resources, restart your browser session.

Afterword

It took me much longer than it should have to make my Azure credits usable in my developer tenant, but now it’s done! I hope you got around doing it much faster, thanks to this post. And if we ever need to set up new developer tenants in the future, we can always come back to this guide and follow the steps again. At least I won’t remember all of them off the top of my head months later, which is why I decided to write them down. 🙂

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Happy Azure developing, and until next time!

Laura