Entra ID user default password expiration policy

Question

I have a new tenant created this year. I've read Microsoft docs but it seems very unclear about default password expiration policy.

In this M365 doc: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/manage/set-password-expiration-policy?view=o365-worldwide, it says by default password never expiration.

But in the below Entra ID doc, it also says by default Password Expiry property is set to false (indicates that passwords have an expiration date).

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/authentication/concept-sspr-policy

So which is true??

Answer 1

Hi @Mobu • Thank you for reaching out.

It looks like you are looking for some clarifications for the password expiry settings.

I have a created a test tenant to illustrate how this works on newer tenants as mentioned in the documentation you are linking to.

You can see that for the Entra ID directory the password validity is indeed essentially set to an unlimited period, meaning passwords do not expire by default.

This can however be overridden on a per user basis. You can see Update-MgUser for more details on that.

The explanation as to why there is an expiration setting is from the interaction with Entra Domain Services. It is documented in this Learn Article: What is the password lifetime policy on a managed domain?

Additionally, the Microsoft Entra password policy for DisablePasswordExpiration is synchronized to a managed domain. When DisablePasswordExpiration is applied to a user in Microsoft Entra ID, the UserAccountControl value for the synchronized user in the managed domain has DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWORD applied.

For the purposes of a standalone Entra ID configuration, the default is indeed that passwords will not expire if he tenant was created after 2021.

I hope this clarifies as to what this setting does in combination with other services.

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