Guest User Licensing Requirement in Power Automate (FAQ)

Anyone collaborating in Power Automate with external partners, customers, or freelancers eventually reaches the point of sharing a flow or an environment with a guest user. The obvious question: Does this person need their own license, or is the invitation as a guest in the Microsoft Entra tenant enough? The answer is clearly yes, but the details determine where the license may come from and what the guest user can actually do with it. As of: July 2026.

This article answers the most common questions about the guest user licensing requirement in Power Automate based on official Microsoft documentation. You'll learn which prerequisites a guest user must meet, where the license may come from, and which features are available to them, so you can share flows and environments cleanly and in a license-compliant way with external people. You retain control over who gets access and on what basis.

Who counts as a guest user in Power Automate

According to the Microsoft documentation on support for guest users a guest user can be a supplier or a customer in a tenant of their own organization who needs access to a tenant in another organization. Guest users are sometimes also referred to as external users. Important for classification: the Power Automate experience for guest users is generally the same as for regular employees, both in the Power Automate portal and in the mobile app, though with some restrictions, mainly relating to licensing and approvals.

Does a guest user need their own Power Automate license

Yes, without exception. The Power Automate licensing FAQ answers the question "Do guest users not from your tenant need a license to use Power Automate?" clearly with yes. The guest user needs a Power Automate license granted by one of the following two tenants:

• the tenant that hosts the flow, for example via an admin trial for temporary access or a standalone license
• the guest user's home tenant, i.e. the organization the person originally belongs to

For example, if a guest user has a Power Automate Premium license assigned in their own home tenant, they can also use premium features in the guest tenant that provides the flow. Double licensing is therefore not necessary, as long as one of the two sources applies.

Prerequisites for license-compliant guest access

For a guest user to actually work in Power Automate, three criteria must be met simultaneously according to the documentation:

• A Power Automate license is assigned, either via the host tenant or via the guest person's home tenant.
• The B2B tenant invitation has been accepted. Anyone who does not accept the invitation is removed from the list of approval recipients and cannot take part in approval workflows.
• Sign-in and consent to Power Automate has taken place.

The second point in particular is often overlooked in practice. If an invitation remains unanswered, the person silently disappears from approval processes without any error message appearing in the flow itself. It's worth keeping this in mind when setting up approval steps involving external participants.

Where the license may come from: mind the cloud boundaries

An important restriction applies to guest scenarios along cloud boundaries. Power Automate, which is included in Office plans, Power Automate Premium, Power Apps Premium, and Dynamics 365 user plans, is recognized across tenants within the public Azure cloud, because these plans are not tied to a specific environment. The same applies to national or sovereign clouds. Between different Azure clouds, for example between the public cloud and a national cloud, licenses are not recognized across tenants. If you work with international partner organizations, you should check this in advance before relying on the license of the guest person's home tenant.

What a guest user can do in Power Automate

A licensed and invited guest user can generally create and run flows, and make changes to flow runs. The specific role determines the scope:

• If the guest user is only supposed to run a flow, the role Sharing-Run Only is sufficient.
• If they are supposed to edit flows or perform actions such as canceling and resubmitting a run, they need a co-owner role.
• For approvals, they can be assigned as an approver, receive an approval email, and are redirected to the approval page in the guest tenant.
• Via widgets, they can create, manage, or run flows in apps such as SharePoint, Teams, Excel, or Power BI.

There are two restrictions you should know about: guest users are currently not supported in Process Mining, and actionable approval emails in Outlook do not work reliably for guest users. For approvals, they therefore need to actively open the Power Automate portal. In addition, not all connectors support directly searching for guest users in trigger or action fields.

Frequently asked questions

Is the invitation as a guest in Microsoft Entra enough, or is a license also required?

The invitation alone is not enough. In addition to the accepted B2B invitation, a guest user must be assigned a Power Automate license, either from the tenant that hosts the flow or from their own home tenant. Without one of these two license sources, according to Microsoft documentation, the guest user cannot work productively with Power Automate.

What happens if a guest user doesn't accept the B2B invitation?

Unconfirmed guest users are automatically removed from the list of approval recipients and cannot take part in approval workflows. If all recipients of an approval are in this state, the creation of the approval even fails completely. It's therefore worth actively checking the invitation status of external participants before a flow goes live.

Can a guest user from a different Azure cloud use their home license?

Only to a limited extent. Within the public Azure cloud, as well as within national or sovereign clouds, the relevant license plans are recognized across tenants. Between different Azure clouds, for example between the public cloud and a national cloud, this recognition does not apply, however. In such cases, the guest user needs their own license in the host tenant.

Are guest users supported in Power Automate Process Mining?

No. The documentation explicitly states that guest users are currently not supported in Process Mining. For all other core functions, such as creating and running flows and taking part in approvals, the same experience applies as for regular employees, provided the licensing and invitation prerequisites are met.

How do I assign a license to a guest user so they can use a shared flow?

As an admin of the host tenant, you can assign the guest user either an admin trial for temporary access or a standalone Power Automate license. Alternatively, it is enough if the guest user already has an Office 365 plan or a plan with a Power Automate license via their own home tenant. Both approaches meet the license requirement, as long as the person also accepts the B2B invitation and signs in and consents to Power Automate.