The Power BI Premium retirement does not land on one date for everyone: Power BI Premium per capacity, the P SKUs, retires at the end of each customer’s current agreement term. New customers could no longer buy P SKUs after July 1, 2024. Customers without an Enterprise Agreement lost the right to renew on February 1, 2025, and Enterprise Agreement customers can renew each year only until their agreement ends. After that, the capacity has to move to a Microsoft Fabric F SKU. For a D365 Finance and Operations team, the real question is which reports sit on that capacity, what the move costs, and who decides before the renewal meeting. This guide answers those three questions, and comes with a free one-page checklist (PDF, no sign-up).
Power BI Premium retirement: the dates that apply to you
- March 14, 2024: Microsoft announced the retirement of the P SKUs.
- July 1, 2024: new customers could no longer buy P SKUs.
- February 1, 2025: the last renewal date for customers without an Enterprise Agreement.
- Your Enterprise Agreement end date: the last day of P capacity for everyone else. Customers whose Enterprise Agreement or Microsoft Cloud Agreement is expiring cannot add or renew P capacity through it.
Write down two dates: the end of your current P SKU term and the end of your agreement. If the P SKU term ends first and you can still renew it, that is your renew-or-move decision date. The end of the last term your agreement allows is the hard deadline, and the move has to finish before it.
What is retiring, and what is not
- Only P1 to P5 retire. Power BI Pro and Premium Per User continue with no license change.
- The embedded EM and A SKUs are not part of the retirement, and every F SKU also covers Power BI Embedded.
- List prices for the user licenses rose on April 1, 2025: Power BI Pro is 14 dollars per user per month and Premium Per User is 24 dollars, both paid yearly.
- Power BI Report Server rights now come with a Fabric F64 or larger reservation, or with SQL Server licensing (SQL Server 2025 Standard or Enterprise core licenses, or earlier Enterprise core licenses with active Software Assurance). Check yours before you cancel the P SKU if you run Report Server on-premises.
- Customers in sovereign clouds are not affected, because Fabric is not yet available there.
After your term ends: day 1, day 31, and day 91
Microsoft gives a wind-down period after the P SKU subscription ends, and calls it a safety net, not a planned migration window:
| Days after the subscription ends | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1 to 30 | The capacity keeps running at its current size at no charge, and workspaces can still be reassigned |
| 31 to 90 | Access is throttled and interactive operations are delayed; data can still be exported and recovered |
| 91 onward | Every operation is rejected; the data is retained but inaccessible until the workspaces move to an F SKU or the capacity is deleted |
Microsoft Learn describes only the delay to interactive operations in days 31 to 90. Microsoft’s 2025 announcement of the grace period added that jobs could be delayed or even rejected, which can include scheduled refreshes. For finance reports that refresh overnight before the morning close meeting, plan as if refreshes can fail from day 31. Microsoft documents no extension beyond day 90; if you need more time, its advice is to contact your Microsoft account representative or partner early.
P1 to F64: the mapping, and what it does not tell you
Microsoft maps the SKUs by compute, measured in capacity units (CUs):
| P SKU | F SKU with the same compute |
|---|---|
| P1 | F64 |
| P2 | F128 |
| P3 | F256 |
| P4 | F512 |
| P5 | F1024 |
Microsoft is clear that this compares compute only, not features or licensing. The line that matters most for finance reporting is F64:
- Viewers. On F64 and larger, people with a free Fabric license can view reports in a workspace on that capacity, as they could on a P SKU. On F2 to F32, every viewer needs Power BI Pro or Premium Per User.
- Model size. The maximum semantic model memory is 25 GB on F64, the same as P1, and 10 GB on F32. A large general ledger model built on D365 F&O data can hit that lower limit.
- Connections and refresh. F32 allows 10 concurrent DirectQuery connections per semantic model and 20 parallel model refreshes, against 50 and 40 on F64.
- Report Server. Report Server rights come only with an F64 or larger reservation, not with smaller F SKUs.
Smaller capacities still run Premium features such as Copilot, which needs F2 or larger. The F64 line decides who can view reports without a license and how big a model can be.
The cost conversation for finance
The P SKU was bought through the Microsoft 365 admin center as a fixed commitment. An F SKU is an Azure resource: it is billed per second on pay-as-you-go, can be reserved for a year, is priced by region, and counts toward a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC). The budget line moves from the Microsoft 365 agreement to Azure, so name its owner before the renewal.
| Pay-as-you-go | 1-year reservation | |
|---|---|---|
| F64, Central US | 8,409.60 dollars a month | about 5,002.67 dollars a month |
| F32, Central US | 4,204.80 dollars a month | about 2,501.33 dollars a month |
Azure list prices on October 15, 2026. Central US is among the lowest-priced regions and many regions cost more (UK South about 17 percent more), so check yours in the Azure pricing calculator. Four details change the math:
- Reserve once usage is steady. Microsoft says pay-as-you-go rates are typically higher than the equivalent P SKU and recommends a yearly reservation once consumption is stable. In Azure’s retail price list on October 15, 2026, a 3-year reservation cost exactly three times the 1-year price, so it added no further discount.
- Capacity overage is on by default. New F capacities bill usage that would otherwise be throttled at three times the pay-as-you-go rate, with a default threshold of 25 percent over a rolling 24 hours. Overage adds no compute, and the threshold is not a hard spending cap, so set it, or turn overage off, when you create the capacity.
- Pausing saves money only on pay-as-you-go. A reservation is paid whether the capacity runs or not, and unused hours do not carry over.
- F64 against F32 plus Pro. At Central US reservation prices, F64 costs about 2,501 dollars a month more than F32, the price of Pro licenses for roughly 179 people. If F32’s compute and 10 GB model limit are enough, F64 is cheaper once more than about 179 people only view reports and do not already have Pro (for example through Microsoft 365 E5). At pay-as-you-go prices the break-even is about 300.
What changes for D365 F&O reporting
Not every report a D365 F&O team uses runs on your Premium capacity. This is how each one is affected:
| Reporting surface | Runs on your P capacity? | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Power BI analytical workspaces embedded in F&O | No: Microsoft bundles the Power BI Embedded service license with the application | None |
| Business performance analytics reports | No: BPA is included with the Finance license and sized to Microsoft’s Power BI Embedded A6 SKU | None, unless you integrated BPA with Fabric (see below) |
| Financial reporting (Report designer) | No: it uses its own data mart | None |
| SSRS documents such as invoices and purchase orders | No: they run inside F&O | None |
| Power BI reports you pinned into F&O workspaces | Yes, if their workspace is on the P capacity | Move with the workspace |
| Your semantic models over Azure Synapse Link, Export to Data Lake, BYOD, OData, or Entity store DirectQuery | Yes, if their workspace is on the P capacity | Move with the workspace, and check model size against the new SKU |
| The lakehouse created by Link to Microsoft Fabric | Yes, if its workspace is on the P capacity (it is a Fabric item) | Keep the F SKU in the same geography as the Dataverse environment |
| BPA integrated with your Fabric workspace | Yes, if its workspace is on the P capacity; it needs Premium or Fabric capacity in the BPA environment’s region | Move with the workspace, in the same region |
| Paginated reports that replaced SSRS, shared with unlicensed users | Yes, if their workspace is on the P capacity | Stay at F64 or above, or license every reader |
Moving to an F SKU: the order that avoids surprises
- Baseline first. Install the Fabric Capacity Metrics app and export usage regularly. Its compute page shows the last 14 days, so capture a full month-end close before you size.
- Inventory. List every workspace on the P capacity with its owner, large-format models, paginated reports, dataflows, gateways, and refresh times, and tag each one by D365 source using the table above.
- Prepare Azure. Register the Microsoft.Fabric resource provider, confirm capacity unit quota in the target region (F64 needs 64), and give the admins a least-privilege role.
- Buy the F SKU first, in the same region as the P capacity. Set the capacity admins when you create it; they must be members of your tenant, not guest users.
- Set overage on purpose. Review the default 25 percent overage threshold, and consider surge protection for background jobs.
- Recreate capacity settings. Tenant settings carry over, but capacity settings do not: re-apply XMLA read-write, semantic model memory limits, and notifications on the new capacity.
- Pilot one workspace. Pick one with a report, a scheduled refresh, and a gateway connection, reassign it, and test it end to end.
- Reassign in batches, outside refresh windows. Use the Fabric admin portal, or Microsoft’s semantic-link-labs notebook for bulk moves. Active refreshes can be interrupted, and an F capacity admin must also be a workspace admin to move a workspace.
- Validate. Check that reports open for unlicensed viewers (on F64 and above), refreshes succeed (reauthorize credentials where needed), and gateways, apps, deployment pipelines, and XMLA tools still work.
- Watch the next close. Monitor capacity use for one to two weeks and through the next month-end and quarter-end before you treat the size as final.
- Cancel the P SKU last. Cancel it manually in the Microsoft 365 admin center once no workspace is left on it.
Do not change region in the same step
Within the same region, standard Power BI items move in seconds. Across regions, only reports, small-format (default) semantic models, dashboards, Dataflow Gen1, paginated reports, datamarts, and scorecards can move. Large-format semantic models and every Fabric item, including lakehouses, warehouses, notebooks, and pipelines, must be removed first or the reassignment fails, and rebuilt models get new IDs, so reports have to be rebound. For D365 F&O this matters most for Link to Fabric: its lakehouse has to stay in the same geography as the Dataverse environment, and unlinking deletes it, so in practice moving it means unlinking, relinking, and a new initial sync of the linked tables. If a cheaper region is tempting, treat that as a separate project.
Two other D365 deadlines in the same window
- November 30, 2026: Export to Data Lake stops permanently, with no extensions. Reports that still read it need to move to Link to Fabric or Azure Synapse Link.
- October 15, 2026: the Delta Lake option in Azure Synapse Link closed to new customers; existing users must move to CSV output or Link to Fabric by December 2027.
If your renewal and either of these fall in the same quarter, plan the capacity move and the data move as one project, because Link to Fabric needs Fabric capacity, which is the capacity you are buying.
Decide these before the renewal meeting
- Who owns the Azure budget line for Fabric capacity.
- Which region the capacity runs in, given where your Dataverse environment sits.
- Which size to start with, from your measured baseline rather than the mapping table alone.
- Pay-as-you-go for the first weeks, then a 1-year reservation once usage is steady.
- The overage threshold, or whether overage is off.
- How viewers are licensed: F64 with free viewers, or a smaller SKU with Pro for everyone.
- Whether you keep Power BI Report Server, and through which license.
- Which workspace you pilot, and the date by which every workspace has moved.
Where Metrixs fits
Metrixs runs in your own Microsoft Fabric environment on Link to Fabric or Azure Synapse Link and adds its data model and 150+ pre-built Power BI reports, with 1,200+ metrics and 250+ KPIs. On the Standard plan, reports use Direct Lake and refresh every 15 to 30 minutes, depending on data volume, the number of reports, and Fabric capacity. See Microsoft Fabric for D365 F&O for how it fits together, or request a demo and see if you qualify for a free 6-month trial.
Download the checklist
The Power BI Premium to Fabric checklist for D365 F&O puts these steps on one page, with the D365 checks included. It is a free PDF with no sign-up.
FAQs
1. Is Power BI Premium Per User retiring too?
No. Only the Premium per capacity SKUs, P1 to P5, are retiring. Power BI Pro and Premium Per User continue unchanged, and the embedded EM and A SKUs are not part of the retirement.
2. Can we stay on a P SKU after our Enterprise Agreement ends?
No. Customers with an active Enterprise Agreement can renew their P SKU each year until the agreement ends. After that, the capacity has to move to a Microsoft Fabric F SKU, and Microsoft documents no extension beyond the 90-day wind-down.
3. Do we lose our reports and data on day 91?
Not on day 91 itself, but treat it as a hard stop. From day 91 every operation is rejected. Microsoft Learn says the data is retained but inaccessible until the workspaces move to an F SKU or the capacity is deleted, and Microsoft’s 2025 grace-period post warns that you may lose access after 90 days and that capacities left in place are eventually deleted.
4. Are the Power BI analytical workspaces built into D365 F&O affected?
No. Microsoft bundles the Power BI Embedded service license with Finance and Operations apps for the analytical workspaces inside the application. What needs attention is anything in your own Power BI workspaces that sits on a P capacity.
5. Is F64 the right size for us?
F64 matches P1 in compute, but Microsoft says the mapping compares compute only. Size from your measured usage in the Fabric Capacity Metrics app, captured through a month-end close. Stay at F64 or above if many people view reports without a Pro or Premium Per User license; for a small group, a smaller SKU plus Pro can cost less.
Sources
All pages below were checked on October 15, 2026.
- Microsoft Power BI blog: important update coming to Power BI Premium licensing, March 14, 2024
- Microsoft Power BI blog: grace period for transitioning from Power BI Premium to Microsoft Fabric
- Power BI Premium migration FAQ
- Power BI Premium migration decision guide
- Power BI Premium migration overview
- How to migrate from Power BI Premium to Fabric
- Microsoft Fabric concepts and licenses
- What is Power BI Premium: capacities and limits
- Fabric capacity overage overview
- Enable and configure Fabric capacity overage
- Reassign a workspace to a different capacity
- Fabric Capacity Metrics app: compute page
- Power BI Report Server: get started
- Power BI pricing
- Microsoft Fabric pricing (Azure)
- Azure Retail Prices API (reservation terms)
- Power BI Embedded integration in finance and operations apps
- Business performance analytics home page
- Business performance analytics in Microsoft Fabric
- Link your Dataverse environment to Microsoft Fabric
- Power BI paginated reports FAQ
- FAQ: transitioning from legacy data integration services (Export to Data Lake)
- Azure Synapse Link Delta Lake option deprecation
Operations head with 20 years of experience delivering business intelligence, ERP, and AI programs across healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. Focus areas include Power Platform adoption and governance, delivery models, and managed services.
