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Appropriate roles: Admin agent | Sales agent
This article explains how to create an educationally qualified customer in Partner Center, so you can sell educational offers to them.
It also describes how to view verification status and resubmit a verification request if necessary. Verification can be requested up to three times per customer.
Education offers are available for license-based services and perpetual software such as Microsoft 365, Dynamics, and Intune. They aren't available for other offers, such as software subscriptions or Azure products.
Create an education customer
Important
Microsoft verifies every newly created education customer tenant to ensure they're qualified for education offers. To prevent delays caused by this verification process, be sure to enter the required information accurately and completely. For example, an accreditation certificate or document from the governing body or a letter from the department, ministry, or board of education.
To create an education customer, use the following steps:
Sign in to Partner Center and select Customers.
Select Add Customer.
From the Special qualifications dropdown, select Education.
Enter account information as required. Key information for the verification process includes:
- Company name: Enter the legal entity name. This field is required for verification, and must match official records and supporting documents.
- Country/region and Address lines: Enter the entity's full mailing address. This field is required for verification, and is used to verify the institution against official records.
- Email address: Enter the entity's email address (which can't be a free or on.microsoft.com email address). This field is required for verification.
- Education Segment: Enter the entity's educational segment. This field is required for verification.
- Customer contact information This field is required for verification.
- Primary domain name: Enter a name similar to the company name with no spaces or special characters, for example contosoforedu for Contoso Elementary School. This information is used to create the customer's account and email addresses and can't be changed later.
- Education website: Enter an official website for the entity. This information expedites the customer verification process.
When you're finished, select Next: Review to see a summary of the information you provided.
You can revise the account information if needed, or select Submit when account details are final.
After your Submit, you'll receive an In Review status if the information submitted is valid.
After you successfully submit your customer's account information, a special qualification status message is sent. Your customer's account might be Approved, In Review, or Denied. If your Special Qualification is undergoing further review, the review typically takes three or fewer business days.
An approved Special Qualification
A Special Qualification in review
A denied Special Qualification
When a customer's education qualification is denied, one of the following messages is displayed depending on the reason:
Denial message Description The customer does not currently qualify as an academic institution. If you believe this decision is incorrect, you can review the learn content to get guidance to update the customer information. The customer wasn't found in education databases, was rejected during review, or was identified as a non-qualifying institution (for example, a private library or museum). The customer does not currently qualify as an academic institution. If you believe this decision is incorrect, you can review the learn content to get guidance to update the customer information. Please note that the review process may take 1–2 weeks. The customer is temporarily blocked from resubmission. The review process may take additional time. The customer is restricted from being an education customer. The customer is restricted from education qualification. Contact support for more information. The email domain provided (for example, gmail.com, hotmail.com) is a public domain and can't be used for EDU verification. You can resubmit your request using an academic domain associated with the school in the email field. A public email domain was used instead of an academic domain. Resubmit with a valid academic email domain. We ran into an error. You can verify the customer domain and resubmit the request for education qualification. An error occurred during the verification process. Verify the customer domain and resubmit.
Note
Customers who don't meet Microsoft's educational licensing requirements can be denied education qualification. If you believe qualification denial to be in error, you can dispute the review up to three times for a customer. Special qualification reviews exceeding three attempts aren't allowed.
Add the education tag to an existing customer
Partners can assign education tag to a customer that is already created in Partner Center using these steps:
Sign in to Partner Center and select Customers.
Select an existing customer from the customer list.
Select the Accounts page from the left navigation to see the specific customers account details.
Select Edit under Special Qualifications.
Select Education as the qualification you're requesting.
Enter the customer’s education details as required. Key information for the verification process includes:
- Education Segment: Enter the entity's educational segment. This field is required for verification.
Note
Use K-12 for institutions primarily serving students in preschool, primary, elementary, middle, junior high, or secondary education. Use Higher Education for accredited post-secondary institutions(universities, colleges and community colleges, and other accredited vocational or technical schools)
- Education website: Enter an official website for the entity. This information expedites the customer verification process.
Submit when account details are final. After you Submit, you'll receive an In Review status indicator if the information submitted is valid.
After you successfully submit your customer's account request, a special qualification status message is shown. Your customer's account might show Approved, In Review, or Denied. If your Special Qualification is undergoing further review, the review typically takes three or fewer business days.
Correct the customer account information
If your customer information failed the initial special qualification verification, you can correct the information and resubmit it using the information in the following sections. To revise customer account information and request special qualification verification, you:
- Must have Global admin privileges to update a customer's information
- You must update the information in the Microsoft 365 portal, because this data can't be updated at Partner Center (to update information, a MAC user role must be either Global Admin or Billing Admin)
To revise customer account information when Special qualification hasn't been approved, use the following steps:
- Select a customer's account from the Customer list.
- Navigate to the Service Management page.
- Select Microsoft 365. You're redirected to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center on a new tab of your browser. You might be required to sign in.
- From Microsoft 365 admin center, in the Navigation menu, go to Settings > Org settings.
- Select the Organization profile tab, and then select Organization information.
- Update your organization's information, then select Save. You must fill in all required fields marked with an asterisk (*) before you can save your changes.
To help expedite the review of your customer and improve the chances of approval, make sure that your customer:
- Doesn't have a free email service provider address for the Technical Contact (gmail.com, outlook.com,...)
- When possible, attach a custom Domain Name attached to the customer's tenant
Resubmit the customer information for verification
To resubmit the customer information for verification, use the following steps. Reverification can take up to three business days.
- Go to your Partner Center tab and to the customer Account page.
- Refresh the browser and verify the Company details were updated with the new information.
- Select Edit to request reverification of education status. If the updated customer details are eligible for education offers, Special qualifications is updated to Education. If you still see Not an Education Customer, you can contact Support for manual verification.
If you end up contacting Support for manual verification, prepare and include at least one current document that confirms the institution's educational status in your support request:
Accreditation certificate or accreditation confirmation letter
Government registration, charter, or ministry/board of education letter
Official institution registration record
Official webpage showing the institution's name, address, and educational mission
For higher education: accreditation, degree-granting authority, or recognized post-secondary registration
For school districts or boards of education: public authority documentation or official government listing
Tip
The most useful evidence is documentation that clearly shows the institution's legal name, address, and education status on the same record or across a small set of matching records.