Microsoft 365 outage: service-credit claims are due by 31 December

Companies hit by the Microsoft 365 outage that began at 16:17 UTC on 12 November 2026 have until 31 December 2026 to claim a service credit, and a credit is paid only on a claim the customer files. Both rules are in Microsoft's [Service Level Agreement for Online Services](https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/view/Service-Level-Agreements-SLA-for-Online-Services), the contract document that sets its uptime promises. At 11:11 UTC on 13 November Microsoft reported "additional progress toward recovery" and gave no time for a full fix, [Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-365-outage-outlook-teams-down-claude-what-we-know-2026-11) reports.

What the agreement pays

For Exchange Online, the mail service behind Outlook, the agreement credits 25% of the month's fee when uptime falls below 99.9%, 50% below 99% and 100% below 95%. The credit is a share of that month's fee for that service, applied to your bill and capped at the fee.

Uptime is counted in user-minutes: the minutes an incident lasted, multiplied by the users it hit, as a share of all users' minutes in the month. November has 43,200 minutes, so the 99% line is 432 minutes (7.2 hours) with every user down, and the 95% line is 2,160 minutes (36 hours). From 16:17 UTC on 12 November to that 11:11 UTC update is 1,134 minutes. If every one of your users was without mail for all of it, uptime for the month is 97.4% and the tier is 50%. Microsoft has not said how many users were affected.

The catch: what counts, and what does not

• Exchange Online downtime is defined as "any period of time when users are unable to send or receive email with Outlook Web Access", the browser version of Outlook. Slow or degraded service "without actual service unavailability" is excluded.
• Microsoft's status notices "are not a confirmation of missed Service Levels or Service Credits eligibility". Microsoft decides each claim, typically within 45 days.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot has separate terms. Downtime is a valid prompt in Copilot Chat that gets "an unsuccessful response from Copilot due to a server-side error from the LLM", the AI model, and credits start below 99.5%. The agreement does not say whether a Copilot Chat that will not load, or cannot reach mail and files, which is what Microsoft's notice described according to [CIO](https://www.cio.com/article/4248249/microsoft-struggles-to-get-m365-services-back-online-after-widespread-outage.html), counts.
• Dynamics 365 Contact Center, down for 477 minutes on 12 and 13 November according to [CX Today](https://cxtoday.com/microsoft-outage-cut-agents-off-from-the-contact-center), has its own tiers: 5% below 99.99%, 25% below 99.9%, 50% below 99%, 100% below 95%. With every agent locked out for all 477 minutes, November's uptime is 98.9%.
• Nothing else is paid. Credits are "your sole and exclusive remedy" and "will not be awarded to compensate for any other forms of loss, including but not limited to lost revenue, operational costs, or any indirect losses". That leaves out idle staff and third-party tools that depend on Microsoft 365, such as Claude's connector.
• Customers on Open, Open Value and Open Value Subscription licences get any credit as days of service, not money.

What a claim must contain

The agreement lists five items: a detailed description of the incident; the time and duration of the downtime; the names of the affected resources; the number and locations of affected users; and a description of the errors. "Failure to provide the required information will result in claims being rejected." Claims go to Microsoft customer support, which must receive them by the end of the month after the incident; Microsoft's example is an incident on 15 February with a deadline of 31 March. Only one credit is paid per service per month, and services bought separately, not as a suite, are claimed separately. The agreement does not say how a customer who buys through a reseller files.

What to do this month

• IT: export your evidence now: when mail, Copilot Chat and the contact centre stopped and returned, how many users in which offices, and the error messages. Record Microsoft incident numbers EX1550543, MO1550821 and, for the contact centre, CR1550885.
• IT: file a claim with Microsoft support for each affected service by 31 December 2026. If you buy through a reseller, ask it today who files.
• Finance: set the largest possible credit, one month's fee for the failed service, beside the hours your teams lost, and take the gap to the next renewal.