Microsoft 365 Developer Program cannot find billing account

Dear Nadya,

I'm sorry to hear about the trouble. Unfortunately, as a forum moderator, I am not able to review your billing account or Developer Program profile to diagnose and fix this directly. My role here is limited to providing general guidance you can apply from your side.

A valid billing account is now required for the E5 instant sandbox and can't be bypassed. It's used for verification only, and you won't be charged for the sandbox. To answer your question, Microsoft's documentation only states the Azure subscription and Azure plan requirement for existing organizational billing accounts. It doesn't say clearly whether the same applies to a new individual account.

In practice, other members with the same symptom found that the billing account didn't appear until it had an Azure plan. They fixed it by creating an invoice section, or a new Azure subscription, under the billing account created in the sandbox flow, and then refreshing the sandbox setup page. Since you mentioned you have neither, this is worth trying first.

1. Sign in to the Azure portal with the same account you use for the Developer Program.
2. Go to Cost Management + Billing > Billing scopes and open your new billing account.
3. Check whether it has a billing profile, an invoice section and an Azure plan. If the invoice section or Azure plan is missing, create an invoice section under the billing profile.
4. Return to the sandbox setup and select the refresh icon next to Billing account. Billing profile and Invoice section also need values before Continue becomes available.

Please note this is a community-reported workaround, not an official requirement, and I'd avoid creating more billing accounts in the meantime. If the account still doesn't appear, this is likely a backend association issue, which several other members have reported too. In that case, please use the Support option on your Developer Program dashboard and include screenshots of both messages, the approximate creation time, and confirmation that you used the same account throughout. Please share your billing account ID with the support team only, not on this public forum.

I hope this helps. Looking forward to your reply.

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