Unable to start Microsoft Fabric Trial in new Microsoft 365 tenant

A paid Fabric capacity is not always required before Fabric workloads become available. Fabric workloads can run on an Azure F SKU capacity, an existing Power BI Premium P SKU capacity, or a Fabric trial capacity. Power BI Pro and PPU licenses do not provide Fabric capacity.

For the specific error and the greyed-out trial options, the documented causes are:

1. The tenant may have exhausted its limit of Fabric trial capacities. In that case, Start trial might be unavailable, trial activation from creating a Fabric item might not appear, or trial start can fail.
2. A Fabric administrator may have disabled access to starting a Fabric trial.
3. Trial eligibility also depends on tenant settings, license state, and the number of trial capacities available in the tenant. Microsoft determines trial availability by region and tenant, and availability can change over time.

Given the stated environment:

1. Verify that Users can create Fabric items is enabled in the Fabric admin portal. This setting is required for users to create Fabric items such as lakehouses.
2. In the Fabric portal, go to Admin portal > Capacity settings > Trial and check whether any trial capacity exists.
3. If no trial capacity appears and trial options remain unavailable or fail, check whether the tenant has reached its Fabric trial capacity limit.
4. If the tenant has exhausted the trial limit, the documented options are:
   • Ask another trial capacity user to share their trial capacity workspace.
   • Purchase a Fabric capacity from Azure.
5. If trial start is still blocked, contact the Fabric administrator to confirm trial access is allowed. If the issue persists, Microsoft Support is the documented escalation path.

So the answer is:

• No, a paid F SKU is not inherently required to use Fabric workloads if a Fabric trial capacity is available.
• Yes, a paid Fabric capacity becomes necessary if the tenant cannot obtain a Fabric trial capacity, including when the tenant has exhausted its trial capacity limit or trial availability is otherwise not granted.

Also note that trial capacity is intended for evaluation and testing only, not production workloads.

References:

• Try Microsoft Fabric for free
• Enable Microsoft Fabric for your organization
• Understand Microsoft Fabric licenses and capacity
• Power BI self-service licensing and trial FAQ