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Can guest accounts invite other external personnel?

ychang he 20 Reputation points
2026-01-27T08:44:50.03+00:00

We have a user in our tenant who is a Guest (External Azure AD) account.

I would like to know if this user is allowed to initiate a group chat that includes other external users.

Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams for business | Chats | Group chats
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  1. Tamara-Hu 13,305 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-01-27T12:59:17.84+00:00

    Hello @ychang he, 

    Thank you for posting your valuable question on Microsoft Q&A forum.   

    Based on Microsoft’s official behavior and verified testing, here’s what you need to know about your inquiry: 

    A guest user can start a group chat that includes other external users, but only when your organization’s settings permit it. Three conditions must be met: 

    1. Guest chat must be allowed 

    If your organization allows guests to use chat, then the guest can: 

    • Open a new chat 
    • Add multiple people 
    • Start a group conversation 

    If chat is disabled for guests, they cannot initiate any group chat at all. 

    2. External communication must be enabled 

    This controls whether anyone in your tenant (including guests) can chat with users in other organizations. 

    If your company: 

    • Allows communication with all external domains, then the guest can add those external users. 
    • Blocks certain domains, the guest will not be able to add people from those blocked domains. 

    3. The external users must already be eligible for chat 

    A guest can only start a group chat with: 

    • External users whose organizations allow cross‑tenant chat, and 
    • External users who already use Teams/Microsoft 365 

    If the person is not using Teams/M365 (for example, someone with a regular email address), then only your internal employees can start that type of chat, guests cannot. 

    For related documents, please check:  

    Please let me know if you need any further assistance or clarifications. Thank you for sharing your question! 

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". 

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  1. Q&A Assist
    2026-01-27T08:44:58.9466667+00:00
    AI generated content. This question contains an answer created with AI from Q&A Assist. Learn more

    Guest accounts in Microsoft Teams can participate in group chats, but their ability to invite other external personnel depends on the organization's settings. Specifically, if the tenant allows guest users to initiate group chats and includes external users, then the guest can initiate such a chat. However, if the organization has restricted guest permissions or external collaboration settings, the guest may not be able to invite other external users.

    To ensure that a guest can invite external personnel, the organization's B2B collaboration policies must permit this action. If these policies are set to allow guests to initiate chats with external users, then the guest account can proceed with inviting them.

    It is advisable to check the specific external collaboration settings in the Microsoft Entra admin center to confirm the permissions granted to guest users in your tenant.

    References:

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