Leaving a Microsoft Teams Guest Tenant – and How Organizations Can Automate Guest Removal

Why guest tenants in Microsoft Teams can be a problem

In Microsoft Teams, users often switch between different organizations, e.g. for projects, customers, or partners. However, when the collaboration ends, many guest accesses remain. This is annoying for users and poses a security risk for organizations.

Each time you are invited as a guest to another organization’s tenant, a new guest account is created in their Entra ID (Azure AD). Once the project is completed, these accounts often remain active. Users continue to see those external tenants in their Teams list, while the company loses track of who still has access to internal data.

This article shows how to leave a guest tenant in Microsoft Teams step by step. We also take a look at why companies should not rely on users to do this manually. Instead, organizations can use External User Manager to automatically manage and remove guest accounts that are no longer needed.

What is a Microsoft Teams guest tenant?

When you are added to a MS Teams environment outside your organization, Microsoft creates a guest account in Azure Active Directory (Entra ID).
This allows cross-company collaboration: external users can join channels, share files, and participate in meetings.

However, once the collaboration ends, these guest accounts usually remain, unless the user removes themselves manually or the inviting organization deletes them. Over time, this leads to:

• Dozens or hundreds of unnecessary guest connections
• Unclear data ownership and compliance gaps
• Increased security risks due to leftover guest access permissions

How to leave Microsoft Teams guest tenant

Why organizations should not rely on users to remove themselves

While users can remove their guest access, few ever do.
That’s why relying on manual cleanup leads to unmanaged access and security gaps.

Common problems organizations face:

• External guests retain access to files and chats long after projects end.
• IT has no clear overview of all active guest users.
• Manual removal is time-consuming and prone to errors.
• Inactive guest accounts remain visible in Microsoft Entra ID, increasing risk exposure.

Especially in industries with strict compliance or data protection requirements, unchecked guest access can quickly become a serious issue.

How External User Manager automates guest management and removal

Manual cleanup isn’t sustainable, especially in large organizations with many external collaborators.
External User Manager provides an automated, policy-based way to manage all Microsoft 365 guest users.

With External User Manager, IT administrators can:

• Automatically detect all guest users across Microsoft 365 tenants
• Set expiration policies for external access (e.g., after 90 days of inactivity)
• Trigger access reviews before removing guests
• Revoke access instantly when no approval or activity is recorded
• Generate audit reports for compliance and documentation

This ensures a secure, compliant and transparent guest user lifecycle, without relying on end users to take action.

Real-world example: Automated guest cleanup with External User Manager

A European construction company discovered over 200 inactive guest accounts across its Microsoft 365 environment.
Manually removing them would have taken days, and some accounts had been inactive for over a year.

After implementing External User Manager, the IT team was able to:

• Automatically detect and remove inactive guest users
• Set custom retention policies (“guest lifecycles”) per department
• Send renewal notifications (access reviews) before deletion
• Keep a transparent audit trail of all guest activities

Result:
90 % less manual admin effort and full compliance with internal data governance policies.

FAQ: Leaving guest tenants and managing external users

Conclusion: Simplify guest tenant management with automation

It’s good practice for users to leave guest tenants they no longer need. However, in reality, few ever do.
That’s why companies should take control and automate this process instead of relying on users.

With External User Manager, your organization can manage, monitor, and remove guest access securely automatically, ensuring that no external user stays longer than necessary.

Request your free demo of External User Manager today! Discover how easy it is to automate guest management and compliance in Microsoft Teams.