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Manage user accounts for consumers and business customers

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Applies to: White circle with a gray X symbol. Workforce tenants Green circle with a white check mark symbol. External tenants (learn more)

User accounts for your consumers and business customers are most commonly created when users sign up for your applications. However, you can also create user accounts in the Microsoft Entra admin center or by using Microsoft Graph. Because consumers and business customers are considered end users, you don't typically assign them admin roles, so they retain default user permissions.

This article focuses on managing user accounts using the Microsoft Entra admin center. You must have at least User Administrator permissions to add or delete users.

See also Add and manage admin accounts for information about user accounts for your external tenant admins.

Prerequisites

  • If you haven't already created your own Microsoft Entra external tenant, create one now.
  • Understand user accounts in Microsoft Entra External ID.
  • Understand user roles to control resource access.

Create a customer account

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
  2. If you have access to multiple tenants, use the Settings icon in the top menu to switch to your external tenant from the Directories + subscriptions menu.
  3. Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
  4. Select New user > Create new external user.
  5. Next to Identities:
    1. Under Sign-in method, select Email.
    2. Under Value, enter the user's email address, which will become their sign-in name.
    3. Select the + Add button to add multiple emails for the user.
  6. Next to Display name (required), enter the first and last name of the user (for example, Mary Parker).
  7. Use the Copy to clipboard button to copy the autogenerated password provided in the Password box. Give this password to the user to sign in for the first time.
  8. Select Review + create.

The user can now sign in using the sign in method you specified.

Reset a user's password

As an administrator, you can reset a user's password, if the user forgets their password. When you reset the user's password, a temporary password is autogenerated for the user. The temporary password never expires. The next time the user signs in, the password will still work, regardless how much time has passed since the temporary password was generated. Then user must reset password to a permanent one.

To reset a user's password:

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
  2. If you have access to multiple tenants, use the Settings icon in the top menu to switch to your external tenant from the Directories + subscriptions menu.
  3. Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
  4. Search for and select the user that needs the reset, and then select Reset Password.
  5. In the Reset password page, select Reset password.
  6. Copy the password and give it to the user. The user will be required to change the password during the next sign-in process.

Delete a user account

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
  2. If you have access to multiple tenants, use the Settings icon in the top menu to switch to your external tenant from the Directories + subscriptions menu.
  3. Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
  4. Search for and select the user to delete.
  5. Select Delete, and then Yes to confirm the deletion.

For details about restoring a user within the first 30 days after deletion, or for permanently deleting a user, see Restore or remove a recently deleted user using Microsoft Entra ID.