Does Microsoft 365 E5 Information Protection and Governance include Audit (Premium)?

Microsoft 365 E5 Information Protection and Governance includes Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium), so a separate eDiscovery and Audit add-on is not ordinarily required for licensed users. The Microsoft 365 Compliance Licensing Comparison identifies Audit (Premium) as included with this SKU.^1^

There is, however, an inconsistency in Microsoft's published material: the current web-based Purview service-description table lists full Microsoft 365/Office 365 E5, Microsoft Purview Suite, and Microsoft 365 E5 eDiscovery & Audit as qualifying plans, but does not explicitly list E5 Information Protection and Governance in its Audit (Premium) table.^2^ Because the downloadable licensing matrix directly includes the SKU, do not purchase an additional add-on solely because of that omission. For a new purchase or renewal, obtain written confirmation from Microsoft or your licensing provider for the exact SKU, agreement, and cloud environment.

Included auditing capabilities

Audit (Premium) includes every Audit (Standard) capability.^3^

Inherited Audit (Standard) capabilities:

• Thousands of searchable user and administrator audit events
• Audit search in the Microsoft Purview portal
• Audit Search Microsoft Graph API
• Search-UnifiedAuditLog in Exchange Online PowerShell
• CSV export
• Office 365 Management Activity API access
• Standard 180-day audit-log retention

Audit (Premium) additions:

• Default one-year retention for Microsoft Entra ID, Exchange, OneDrive, and SharePoint audit records generated by appropriately licensed users
• Custom audit-log retention policies
• Intelligent insights and additional high-value events for forensic investigations
• Higher-bandwidth access to the Office 365 Management Activity API
• Configurable longer retention for eligible records

These Premium benefits are licensed per benefiting user. Although Audit (Premium) is enabled at tenant level, one-year retention and premium events apply only to users assigned an appropriate license.^2^

Important limitations

• Ten-year retention is not included. It requires a separate per-user 10-Year Audit Log Retention add-on and an applicable retention policy; it is not retroactive.^3^
• The Information Protection and Governance product is a supplemental E5 compliance SKU, so its prerequisite base-license requirements still apply.^1^
• Users administering or searching audit data also need the appropriate Microsoft Purview permissions; licensing alone does not grant portal access.

References

1. Microsoft 365 Compliance Licensing Comparison
2. Microsoft Purview service description
3. Learn about auditing solutions in Microsoft Purview