Microsoft 365 Outage: Is Your Business Entitled to Compensation?

The November 2026 Microsoft 365 outage disrupted businesses worldwide. Here’s how small and mid-sized businesses can check their eligibility, estimate compensation and submit a claim.

The Microsoft 365 outage on 12–13 Nov 2026 left businesses struggling to access Outlook, send emails and communicate with customers.

Our organisation experienced nearly 15 hours of disruption.

While Microsoft worked to restore services, businesses were left managing the consequences.

But here’s something many Microsoft 365 subscribers may not realise: Microsoft’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) may entitle your organisation to service credits when availability falls below its contractual commitment.

Let’s understand how it works.

1. Who is eligible?

Organisations using the following subscriptions may qualify for service credits following an eligible Exchange Online outage:

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard and Premium
• Exchange Online Plan 1 and Plan 2
• Eligible Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans

Eligibility depends on the affected service, your subscription agreement and Microsoft’s assessment of the incident.

Importantly, credits apply to the affected service, not necessarily the entire Microsoft 365 subscription.

2. How much compensation could you receive?

Microsoft’s Exchange Online SLA provides the following service-credit tiers:

Monthly availability	Service credit
99.9% or higher	0%
Below 99.9%	25%
Below 99%	50%
Below 95%	100%

The highest applicable tier determines the credit.

Exchange Online uses a calculation based on affected users and downtime, measured in user-minutes.

Monthly Uptime % = (1 − Affected User-Minutes ÷ Total User-Minutes) × 100

For example, assume an organisation has 100 licensed users, all affected by a 15-hour outage during November.

• Total user-minutes: 100 × 43,200 = 4,320,000
• Affected user-minutes: 100 × 900 = 90,000
• Monthly uptime: 97.92%
• Potential service-credit tier: 50%

Now suppose the eligible monthly Exchange Online service charge is S$700.

The estimated credit would be S$700 × 50% = S$350.

This is only an illustration. Microsoft’s validated downtime, service-specific pricing and contractual terms determine the actual amount.

For bundled subscriptions such as Business Standard, only the affected Exchange Online component may qualify, rather than the full licence fee.

Service credits generally reduce subscription charges. They are not compensation for lost productivity, missed orders or business revenue.

3. How to submit your claim

Step 1: Identify the incident

Visit the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and navigate to Health > Service health > Issue history.

Locate the relevant incident and save its details. For the November outage, check whether references EX1550543 and MO1550821 appear for your tenant.

Step 2: Gather supporting evidence

Prepare your tenant ID, incident reference, affected user count, disruption start and end times, error screenshots and support records.

Step 3: Submit your request

• Direct Microsoft customers: Raise an SLA credit request through Microsoft 365 Admin Center → Support → Help & support.
• CSP customers: Contact your Microsoft reseller and request that they submit an SLA credit claim through Partner Center.

Step 4: Observe the deadline

Microsoft’s CSP guidance requires claims for non-Azure service outages within one month after the end of the billing month in which the outage occurred.

For a billing month ending 30 Nov 2026, that generally means a deadline of 31 Dec 2026. Other agreements and billing periods may differ.

Submit early rather than risk missing the applicable deadline.

4. A quick email to your Microsoft reseller

Subject: SLA Credit Request – Microsoft 365 Nov 2026 Outage

Dear Support Team,

Our organisation experienced significant Exchange Online disruption during the Microsoft 365 outage on 13 Nov 2026.

Please initiate an SLA service-credit claim for our affected subscriptions, referencing incidents EX1550543 and MO1550821.

Kindly advise the evidence required, applicable deadline and claim reference.

Thank you.

Is it worth claiming?

Absolutely worth checking.

The credit may be modest, particularly for smaller businesses. And Microsoft must verify the actual impact before approving it.

Still, organisations pay for contracted service levels and should understand their rights when those commitments are not met.

A service credit won’t recover lost productivity, but it is a reasonable contractual remedy worth pursuing.

More importantly, this outage reminds us why businesses need practical continuity arrangements, even when using highly reliable cloud platforms.

For the broader discussion on the outage and affordable business continuity solutions, read my companion article: “Friday the 13th: When the Cloud Goes Dark“

Official references

• Microsoft Online Services SLA
• Microsoft Partner Center: Request a Credit