Microsoft 365 Business: Usage Location vs Billing Country

Each user’s UsageLocation should represent the country/region in which that user uses Microsoft 365, while the organization and subscription country should be Ethiopia—the company’s headquarters—not Somalia merely because the card was issued there.

1. User UsageLocation

For the stated workforce, configure:

• 30 Ethiopia-based users: ET
• 30 Kenya-based users: KE
• 40 Somalia-based users: SO

UsageLocation is a per-user licensing property. It must contain a valid ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code before a license can be assigned, because service availability can vary by country or region.^1^

It is independent of:

• The administrator’s location
• The company headquarters
• The subscription’s billing country
• The country that issued the payment card

For users who permanently relocate, update UsageLocation to their new normal service location. Temporary travel ordinarily does not require treating the user as having permanently moved.

To review and update it with Microsoft Graph PowerShell:

Connect-MgGraph -Scopes "User.ReadWrite.All"

Get-MgUser -All -Property UserPrincipalName,UsageLocation |
    Select-Object UserPrincipalName,UsageLocation

Update-MgUser -UserId "[Email]" -UsageLocation "KE"

The operation requires an account and permission capable of updating users, such as the documented User.ReadWrite.All scope.^2^

2. Organization, subscription, and billing addresses

At signup, Microsoft asks for the country/region where the organization plans to use the service, and that selection cannot subsequently be changed. If the wrong country is entered during signup, the signup process must be restarted before completion.^3^

For an established Ethiopian company:

• Organization/subscription country: Ethiopia
• Sold-to address: The Ethiopian legal/company address
• Bill-to address: The actual billing department or legally valid billing address
• Service usage address: For an MOSA billing account, normally the sold-to address; where there are multiple offices or remote workers, Microsoft says to use the address where most users are located.^4^

In this example, no single country contains a majority: Somalia has the largest group, but only 40 of 100 users. Microsoft’s published wording says “where most your users are located” but does not define how to resolve this type of plurality/no-majority case. Confirm the service usage address with Microsoft billing support rather than inferring that it must be Somalia.

The card’s issuing country does not determine the company’s headquarters or replace the subscription country. The payment method must still be accepted for the applicable billing account and market. Microsoft handles cards differently for Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) and Microsoft Online Subscription Agreement (MOSA) accounts.^5^ The available guidance does not confirm that a Somalia-issued card is accepted for an Ethiopia-market subscription, so Microsoft billing support should validate that combination before the replacement subscription is purchased.

3. If Somalia was selected during purchase

The country/region cannot be edited in place. Microsoft states that the organization’s headquarters country determines service availability, taxes, billing currency, and datacenter location. The supported correction is to sign up for a new account with Ethiopia selected and purchase a new subscription.^6^

To minimize interruption:

1. Do not cancel the Somalia subscription first.
2. Open Microsoft 365 admin center → Help & support and ask Microsoft billing support to confirm:
   • The existing organization/tenant country
   • Billing account type: MCA or MOSA
   • Ethiopia offer availability
   • Whether the Somalia-issued card is acceptable
   • Cancellation, credit, and overlap options
3. Create the new Microsoft 365 account/tenant with Ethiopia selected.
4. Purchase sufficient licenses in the new tenant and configure users, domains, security settings, and applications.
5. Plan a tenant-to-tenant migration, including identity mapping, domain transfer, mail routing, Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams dependencies. Microsoft recommends having sufficient target licenses and planning coexistence during a phased transition.^7^
6. Migrate and validate the workloads before removing source licenses.
7. Cancel the old subscription only after cutover and validation.

Cross-tenant migration supports Microsoft 365 Business Standard but requires planning and applicable per-user migration licensing.^8^

Microsoft does not document an in-place country correction that guarantees uninterrupted service. Running source and target tenants in parallel during migration is the supported way to reduce disruption. If the subscription was purchased through a partner, contact that partner; otherwise, an administrator can open the support request from the admin center.^9^

References

1. Assign Microsoft 365 licenses to user accounts with PowerShell
2. Configure Microsoft 365 user account properties with PowerShell
3. How to sign up for a Microsoft 365 for business plan - Admin Help
4. Change the billing addresses for your Microsoft business subscription
5. Pay your Microsoft business invoice by using a credit or debit card
6. Change your organization's address, contact preferences, and technical contact in the Microsoft 365 admin center
7. Plan a Microsoft 365 tenant-to-tenant migration
8. An overview of tenant-to-tenant migration with orchestrator in Microsoft 365
9. Get support for Microsoft 365 for business