Bypass Lobby for invited users but not working for external users added in the organization.

People who were invited only lets participants bypass the lobby if they have the invitation itself and are signed in with a recognized work or school account or guest identity. It does not include people who only have the join link, and it does not include participants who aren’t signed in.

For external users, the key limitation is identity matching:

• The setting includes guests and work or school accounts to whom the invite was forwarded.
• If the external person joins with a different identity than the one tied to the invitation or guest account, Teams won’t treat them as an invited participant for lobby bypass.
• In that case, they wait in the lobby.

Supported workarounds:

1. Ensure the external participant joins with the exact invited identity.
   • If the user was added as a guest in the tenant, the user must join with that guest-associated identity.
   • If the user joins with another account, Teams can treat them as a different participant.
2. Disable invite forwarding if only directly invited identities should bypass the lobby.
   • The People who were invited setting includes forwarded invites.
   • Turning off forwarding helps restrict bypass to the intended identities.
3. If identity mismatch is expected, use a different lobby setting.
   • People in my org and guests allows people in the organization and people with guest access to bypass the lobby.
   • People in my org, trusted orgs, and guests also allows trusted external organizations and guests to bypass.
   • Everyone allows anyone with the meeting link to join directly, subject to admin policy behavior for some anonymous, untrusted, or dial-in participants.
4. Verify external access prerequisites at the tenant level.
   • Guest access must be enabled for guests.
   • External access must be enabled for trusted organizations.
   • Anonymous meeting join must be enabled if anonymous participants are expected.
   • If any of these are off, that participant type can’t join as expected regardless of lobby settings.

If the requirement is specifically “only invited users bypass the lobby,” there is no separate workaround in the documented behavior for external users joining under a different identity. The practical options are to make them join with the exact invited identity or choose a broader bypass setting that matches how those users authenticate.

To change the meeting-level setting in Teams:

1. Open Calendar in Teams.
2. Select the meeting.
3. Select View event.
4. Select Options.
5. Under Meeting access, change Who can bypass the lobby?.
6. Select Apply.

• Using the lobby in Microsoft Teams meetings
• IT Admins - Manage lobby options in Microsoft Teams
• IT Admins - Manage lobby options in Microsoft Teams
• IT Admins - Manage external meetings and chat with people and organizations using Microsoft identities