This document is about Dynamics 365 licenses, but it is not a legally binding licensing rights document. It also does not supersede or replace any legal documentation covering use rights. To understand conditions on license acquisition, product-specific terms, and conditions governing how Microsoft products can be used in Microsoft volume licensing programs, review the complete Product Terms and Licensing Terms.

A complete list of product features and capabilities is available in technical documentation at Dynamics 365 documentation - Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn.

For help determining the right technology solution for your organization, including the license requirements for a specific product or scenario, talk to your Microsoft account team or your Dynamics Certified Partner. Microsoft reserves the right to review or update this document at any time without notice.

This document does not apply to Microsoft Dynamics on-premises solutions; the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online service; or the Microsoft Dynamics AX online service.

Business Central connects teams across your organization with tools to help them work more efficiently, collaborate better, and respond more quickly to changes to meet your business goals.  Business Central Essentials and Premium are licensed per user.

Note: Internal users licensed with Microsoft 365 Business, Enterprise, and select other plans, whose organization has one or more Business Central licenses, are granted read-only access to Business Central data from within Microsoft Teams, at no additional cost. See Business Central access with Microsoft 365 licenses for full details.

This licensing guidance applies to the following products: 

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Essentials
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Premium
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Device
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Team Member

Dynamics 365 applications are licensed by subscription per User, Device, or Tenant:

• User licenses: Grants access for a named user with personal login credentials, from any device.
• Device licenses: Grants access to a shared device using either assigned or shared logins.
• Tenant licenses: Provides access to a feature or service at the tenant level, regardless of the user or device involved.

An organization may have a mix of user, device and tenant licenses.

Dynamics 365 cloud subscription licenses grant non-perpetual use rights to one or more specific Dynamics 365 cloud services (not on-premises). Please see the Product Terms for Dynamics 365 online service terms.

NOTE: Users with the Power Platform Administrator or Dynamics 365 Administrator role in Entra do not require a license. Additionally, the System Administrator role in Dataverse and Finance and Operations does not require a license to configure and administer Dynamics 365 applications.

User licenses grant a named user full or limited access to specific products. Full-access user licenses are the most common, but user licenses also include several options for additional users (usually with limited functionality).

NOTE: Enterprise and Professional users may not be deployed in the same environment. See Mixed deployments of Dynamics 365 services for full details.

Full-access users are those who require access to the full, feature-rich functionality of one or more Dynamics 365 application(s). Options for full-access users include Base and Attach licenses:

Base license: When purchasing multiple Dynamics 365 applications for a single user, the first application license must be the highest priced license (a.k.a. base license) for the named user. Every full-access user must have a base license.

Attach license: Dynamics 365 attach license pricing is available for users who require multiple Dynamics 365 applications. Attach licenses may only be assigned to users with an appropriate qualifying base license. A named user may have more than one attach license.

NOTE: Base and attach licenses are identical in their core capabilities and are only differentiated in price. Attach licenses do not include additional platform entitlements. They are licensed to access the platform entitlements included with the assigned base license. (exception: Customer Insights attach licenses include the same default capacity entitlements as the Customer Insights base license.)

Base applications and their qualifying products for attach licensing

[1] Note: When purchasing multiple Dynamics 365 applications for a single user, the first application license must be the highest priced license (a.k.a. base license) for the named user. As an exception, users who license Business Central Premium as their base license ($100 user/month, billed annually) are eligible to add Customer Service Enterprise, Field Service or Sales Enterprise at the $20 user/month, billed annually attach price. 
[2] Pricing variable. Please contact a Dynamics 365 sales specialist for pricing information. 10 seat minimum purchase requirement. See Microsoft Product Terms for service specific terms. 
[*] See Microsoft Product Terms for full details on license availability, pre-requisites, and purchase minimums. 
[**] System administrator will not be able to assign an attach license to a user who does not have the required base license. 
All pricing (USD) subject to change, please see Pricing | Microsoft Dynamics 365 for actual pricing.

Additional users often represent a large percentage of the total users in an organization. They may consume data or reports from line of business systems; complete light tasks like time or expense entry and HR record updates; or use the system more heavily without requiring full-access user capabilities. Additional users may access all the functionality of the respective Dynamics 365 product within the constraints described below.

• Business Central Team Members license: Assigned to a named user, Business Central Team Members provides read-only access to certain data and limited functionality within Business Central deployments.
• Human Resources Self Service license: Assigned to a named user, HR Self Service provides access to employee and manager self-serve capabilities (such as absence or vacation entry or benefits look-up).
• Team Members license: User license intended for those who support multiple lines of business and are not tied to a specific business unit. Licensed users are granted read-only access to all Dynamics 365 data and basic Dynamics 365 capabilities for designated scenarios, such as expense entry or updating contacts.
• Operations – Activity license: This named user license is intended for users who require more Dynamics 365 capabilities than Team Members licensed users, but still do not require the use rights of a full-access user license.

Device licenses grant a dedicated shared device full or limited access to specific products. Full-access device licenses are the most common, but device licenses also include options for additional devices (usually with limited functionality).

Dedicated shared devices that require access to the full, feature-rich functionality of one or more Dynamics 365 application(s). With a device license, any number of users can access the Dynamics 365 application through the licensed dedicated shared device.

Device licenses may use shared logins (such as “Warehouse Computer” and a shared password) or individual logins (each user’s personal credentials), depending on the application and license:

• Shared logins are enabled for Sales Device, Customer Service Device, Field Service Device, Guides Device, Remote Assist Device, Operations – Device, and Business Central Device licenses. Note that when individual users share a login, their individual usage cannot be tracked. 
• Individual logins are enabled for Business Central Device and Operations – Device licenses (with no separate user license required).

In some scenarios, shared operations devices might only be used to consume data or reports from line of business systems or complete light tasks (e.g., time entry, expense entry, and HR record updates), without requiring full-access capabilities. Additional devices may access all the functionality of the respective Dynamics 365 product within the constraints described below.

• Operations – Device licenses provide limited access to a subset of Finance, Supply Chain Management, Commerce, and Project Operations capabilities.

Tenant licenses provide tenant level access to Dynamics 365 applications and resources. They are not assigned to specific named users or dedicated shared devices. Options include full-access licenses and additional capacity licenses, for components that may be subject to capacity limits (e.g., Dataverse storage).

These licenses are the primary licensing mechanism for certain products, such as Dynamics 365 Electronic Invoicing and Customer Insights, which are only licensed per tenant.

The subscriptions for many Dynamics 365 products come with capacity entitlements or allowances, such as for data storage, transaction volume, case routing requests, or customer profiles, for instance. The exact entitlement depends on the specific product and licensing agreement. Capacity add-on licenses provide more flexibility for those components subject to capacity limits but needed to support a product.

• Default subscription capacities leverage the same tenant and infrastructure and accrue across the single tenant. Dataverse (formerly Common Data Service) capacities are shared between the following products: Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Finance, Supply Chain Management, Commerce, Human Resources, Project Operations, Remote Assist, Guides, Business Central Essentials, and Business Central Premium. Operations Database and file storage capacities (as distinct from the Dataverse capacities) are shared between only a few products: Finance, Supply Chain Management, Commerce, Human Resources, and Project Operations.
• Capacity licenses require a minimum of a one-year subscription commitment with annual allowances for the entitlements (e.g., transactions). The annual allowance, which is pooled across a single tenant, applies even for capacities that are allotted per month. For instance, an annual subscription that provides a total of 36K transactions is licensed at 3,000 transactions per month for 12 months, but those transactions can be consumed at any point in the year, including all in one month. For instance, a seasonal business would be able to use its allowance in six months at a rate of 6,000 transactions per month.
• Capacity add-on licenses, which are pooled across a single tenant, are not associated with a specific user. Additional capacity can be bought at any time and remains a part of the subscription for the remainder of the subscription term.

To use any of the following prebuilt Dynamics 365 Agents, users must have Dynamics 365 Business Central License. For details about credits, see the Copilot Credits Overview section.

• Sales Order Agent - Sales Order Agent helps Business Central users automate capturing sales orders. The agent uses AI to analyze customer requests received via email, locate the customer in Business Central, and engage in multi-turn email conversations to clarify requests if important details are missing or more choices are available. It also checks and informs the customer about the availability of the items they're looking for and follows up with a sales quote. Visit Sales Order Agent overview (preview) - Business Central | Microsoft Learn to learn more.
• Payables Agent – The Payables Agent captures, validates, and matches invoices against purchase orders and receipts, reducing manual data entry and errors. This agent routes invoices to the right approvers with configurable rules, accelerating approvals and improving compliance and provides dashboards and alerts for outstanding payables, enabling better cash flow management and vendor relationship tracking. Visit Payables Agent Overview - Business Central | Microsoft Learn to learn more.

Business Central Essentials provides a wide range of operational and management capabilities, including:

[1] For feature availability in your region, consult https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/business-central/about-localization.

[2] Requires Intelligent Edge or Azure Machine Learning subscription.

[3] Dynamics 365 Sales Integration requires a Dynamics 365 Sales license.

[4] Support for sales tax or VAT depending on country of deployment.

Business Central Premium includes all license capabilities of Essentials, plus Service Order Management and Manufacturing.

• Unrestricted Business Central Team Members access.
• Option to procure up to 3 External Accountant licenses per customer tenant for third-party accountants to connect to Business Central. These licenses provide the same use rights as assigned Business Central licenses, except access to user set up or administrative tasks.
• Multiple companies.[1]
• Use of Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Business Central
• For other AI-powered features: 1800 seconds (30 minutes) per tenant of access to Azure AI, which can compile data from a variety of sources to deliver more actionable insights and analytics.

[1] Limited number of companies per environment. See Company limit for more info.

Business Central licenses include the following configuration components. Customers choosing to exercise their dual use rights receive the full custom objects range numbered 50,000 – 99,999.

Business Central Device licenses are available and provide limited access to a subset of Business Central capabilities.

These device licenses allow multiple users to operate a licensed point-of-sale device, shop floor device, warehouse device, or store manager device. If multiple users, who only require these limited use rights, work exclusively on shared devices, it will generally be more cost effective to license those devices than the users themselves.

A single device can provide any of the following functionality in any combination. Business Central Device licenses do not include full user capabilities.

Dynamics 365 Business Central Team Members license, not to be confused with Dynamics 365 Team Members license, grants a named user the following rights for their own use only (not for, or on behalf of, others):

• Read data within Business Central
• Update existing data and entries in Business Central, such as previously created customer, vendor, or item records. Entries are defined as specific accounting information that, may be updated, such as a due date on customer ledger entries.
• Approve or reject tasks in all workflows assigned to that user, with the limit that approvals and rejections can only update data in records that Business Central Team Members can access.
• Create, edit, and delete a sales or purchase quote
• Create, edit, and delete personal information
• Edit job time sheets for approval
• Use the Dynamics 365 Power Apps/Power Automate use rights provided with a Dynamics 365 license
• Business Central Team Members application module may be customized with maximum 15 additional tables (custom tables or standard Dataverse tables) available to the Business Central Team Members license.

For additional details, refer to the Essentials and Premium capabilities.

When a tenant is assigned its first subscription-based license for either Dynamics 365 Business Central Essentials or Premium, it automatically includes default Business Central database storage capacity and the right to use the application in a set number of environments.  The default database storage capacity for Business Central is a one-time entitlement that is shared across the entire tenant. Additional base licenses do not increase this default capacity. However, each additional Dynamics 365 Business Central subscription license will automatically accrue extra database capacity at no additional cost.:

Attach licenses do not include Business Central database capacity entitlements. Attach licenses are intended to access the shared capacity provisioned to the tenant. For bundled offers like Sales Premium and MRS, capacity entitlements are tied to the core application (such as Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise).

Business Central database storage: Structured database storage.

Environments:

• Production: a service that can be accessed by end users and is designed, built, and scaled to accommodate your applications to process live and/or real-time data in connection with your ongoing business operations and is deployed within a single geographic region.
• Business Central environment: For Business Central Premium or Essentials.

Nonproduction: User acceptance testing (UAT), sandbox, and testing environments. These environments cannot be used to process live and/or real-time data in connection with ongoing business operations.

Business Central Database capacity add-ons give you the option to increase the storage capacity associated with your Dynamics 365 Business Central subscription. Business Central Database Capacity add-ons are available in 1GB or 100GB increments.

Additional environments are available in Business Central with one license providing 1 production environment, 3 sandbox environments and 4GB of Business Central Database Capacity.

There are three ways to buy Dynamics 365 products and services.

• Microsoft Partners: For customers in need of a fully managed and tailored Dynamics 365 solution. Visit Microsoft Marketplace | cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents to connect with a partner. 
• Microsoft Sales: For customers who want to learn more about Dynamics 365, discuss use cases or get pricing information. Visit Microsoft 365 Sales and Support | Microsoft 365 to contact Microsoft Sales or call Microsoft Sales at (800) 642-7676.  
• Microsoft Online: Visit Pricing | Microsoft Dynamics 365 to purchase Dynamics 365 subscriptions online.

This table outlines three primary purchasing channels, all offering flexible subscription lengths and support models.

Download the How to Buy Guide for more details.