Bulk Remove All Licenses from Multiple M365 Users via Microsoft Graph

Remove licenses via the Microsoft 365 Admin Center

Best for one-off removals or when you need to review each user before acting. For 5+ users, prefer the API or PowerShell path.

1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center as a Global Administrator or License Administrator.
2. In the left navigation, go to Users → Active users.
3. For each user in your list:
   1. Click the user's display name to open their details pane.
   2. Select the Licenses and apps tab.
   3. Uncheck every assigned license checkbox.
   4. Click Save changes.
4. To confirm, refresh the user list and filter by Filter → Unlicensed users — the target users should now appear.

Alternative: Billing → Licenses view

1. Go to Billing → Licenses.
2. Click the SKU you want to reclaim (e.g., Microsoft 365 E5).
3. On the Assigned licenses tab, select the target users and click Unassign licenses.

Note: The Admin Center will not remove licenses that are inherited from a group. For those, go to Microsoft Entra admin center → Groups, find the licensing group, and remove the user from group membership.

Remove licenses via Microsoft Graph

The removal pattern is a three-step process per user: resolve the UPN to an ID, list currently assigned direct SKUs, then POST an assignLicense call with those SKUs in the removeLicenses array.

Step 1 — Resolve each UPN to an object ID

GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/{upn}?$select=id,displayName,userPrincipalName

Example response:

{
  "id": "7eacb09b-1e01-4974-b3ec-7271c8c61eeb",
  "displayName": "Pradeep Gupta",
  "userPrincipalName": "PradeepG@contoso.onmicrosoft.com"
}

Step 2 — Get current license assignments

GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/{id}/licenseDetails

Note: $expand=licenseDetails on the /users collection is not supported. You must fetch licenseDetails per user.

Example response:

{
  "value": [
    {
      "skuId": "c42b9cae-ea4f-4ab7-9717-81576235ccac",
      "skuPartNumber": "ENTERPRISEPACK"
    }
  ]
}

Step 3 — Remove the licenses

POST https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/{id}/assignLicense
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "addLicenses": [],
  "removeLicenses": [
    "c42b9cae-ea4f-4ab7-9717-81576235ccac"
  ]
}

A 200 OK with the updated user object indicates success. Repeat the POST for each user in your target list, passing the SKU IDs you collected in step 2.

Optimization: use $batch

For larger lists, combine up to 20 requests per call using POST https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/$batch to reduce latency.

Error handling

• 404 — User not found. Verify UPN spelling.
• 400 License assignment failed — Typically a conflict with group-based licensing or a disabled SKU. Inspect assignedByGroup on the licenseDetails entry.
• 429 — Throttled. Honor the Retry-After header.

Remove licenses with Microsoft Graph PowerShell

The Microsoft.Graph PowerShell SDK provides Set-MgUserLicense, which wraps the same assignLicense endpoint.

Prerequisites

# Install the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK (one-time)
Install-Module Microsoft.Graph -Scope CurrentUser

# Connect with the required scopes
Connect-MgGraph -Scopes "User.ReadWrite.All","Directory.Read.All"

Core pattern

# Define target users
$upns = @(
    'alice@contoso.com',
    'bob@contoso.com'
)

foreach ($upn in $upns) {
    $user = Get-MgUser -UserId $upn
    $licenses = Get-MgUserLicenseDetail -UserId $user.Id
    $skuIds = $licenses.SkuId

    if ($skuIds) {
        Set-MgUserLicense -UserId $user.Id -AddLicenses @() -RemoveLicenses $skuIds
    }
}

The downloadable script below adds pre-flight validation, per-user logging, CSV export, a -WhatIf dry-run mode, and detection of group-inherited licenses.