Create work account

Appropriate roles: User with a work email and with authority to sign legal agreements

Working in Partner Center requires you to have work account.

What is a work account?

A work account (for example, admin@contoso.com or admin@contoso.onmicrosoft.com) is associated with a tenant in Microsoft Entra ID (for example, f8000f31-a00e-4b4a-9300-5f000e91255a). A tenant is a dedicated instance of Microsoft Entra ID that represents an organization and holds the directory of work accounts, among other resources. It’s different from a personal Microsoft account (like Outlook.com, Hotmail). You typically need it to access Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Teams, SharePoint), Azure, Partner Center.

The work account for Microsoft Entra tenants is either the same as your primary email address at your company (formatted as user@yourcompany.com), or an Azure-assigned domain (formatted as user@yourcompany.onmicrosoft.com). To learn more, see connect your company's primary domain to your work account later in this article.

How is a work account useful in Partner Center?

In Partner Center context, a work account is required to enroll into one of the many programs offered such as Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, Cloud solution provider and more. In Partner Center, you use your Microsoft Entra tenant to:

• Sign in to Partner Center.
• Manage Partner Center workspace permissions for the users/work accounts on the tenant and maintain identity isolation
• Host groups and applications.

When to create a work account?

Creating a new work account creates a new tenant and a billing account.

• Follow the best practices outlined in Identity isolation and ensure there are separate tenants used for Microsoft AI cloud partner program (MAICPP) and Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) enrollments.
• It's recommended to create a tenant for just the users who do need access, keeping the identities used for your Partner Center instance separate from your company work accounts.

Where to create work account

Choose Partner option in Partner Center programs page and then you're presented with page to use existing work account or create new work account. Section outlines steps to create work account

Setup steps

1. Enter the work account email and choose to set up an Organization type of billing account.

   

   

2. Create a new billing account screen collects your organization's name, address, contact, and phone.

   Organization name and address - Enter your business’s legal business name and address exactly as it appears in official business or registration records used for verification. The business street address and postal code you enter must match the information held by authoritative business data sources (such as government or commercial registries) that Microsoft relies on to validate business identity. Mismatches can delay or prevent successful verification. When entering your business address, use standard Western European characters (for example, enter Athens instead of Αθήνα) to avoid name checking errors.

   Contact - This information is used as Primary contact for Partner Center program enrollment.

   

3. On the Sign-in details screen, provide your username, domain, and password for the tenant.

4. On the Add payment method screen, provide credit card details. Providing this information doesn't result in any charges at the time of sign-up. Charges apply only when a purchase is made for Microsoft products or services.

Connect a domain to your work account

In the Azure portal, you can connect multiple domains to your account. You might want to connect domains if:

• You sign in using an Azure-assigned domain (formatted as user@yourcompany.onmicrosoft.com) and would rather sign in using your company's primary domain (formatted as user@yourcompany.com).
• Your company has more than one domain. Use the domain associated with your corporate headquarters rather than a regional department for Partner Center. For example, use a contoso.com email address rather than a contoso.uk address.

For more information about adding domains in Microsoft Entra ID, see Add or associate a domain in Microsoft Entra ID.

Related content

• Enroll in MAICPP
• Track verification status