Microsoft announce that from April 1, 2026, a new option called the Extended Service Term (EST) will be available when CSP subscriptions expire. Customers currently have the choice to renew automatically, and if they don’t, the subscription goes into a grace period, meaning no loss of service. From April 1, 2026, the grace period will no longer exist. Instead, the options will be to either renew automatically, cancel at expiry, or leave auto-renew off and move to EST. When the subscription is in the EST a new SKU is used, and service continues – billed at an uplifted rate. EST allows customers to maintain access to their services while they decide their next steps, at which point they have flexibility to take another route.

An overview of the details and a useful timeline can be found here: https://bit.ly/47KgLIz.