Summary page: Licensing Options. Verified against Microsoft Learn and Microsoft pricing pages on that date. Companion pages: Pricing reference, Decision Tree reference.
This page covers what each licence and capacity permits; prices are in the pricing reference, and the order of buyer questions is in the decision tree reference.
Licences and capacity
- A per-user licence. One per person. Controls what that person is allowed to do: build, publish, share, or only view.
- A capacity, optional. A pool of compute rented from Azure. Controls how large models can be, which workloads beyond Power BI are available, and, at one specific size, whether viewers still need a paid licence.
What a person can do is always the combination of their licence, the workspace type the content sits in, their role on that workspace, and the capacity behind it. Most small and mid-sized organizations buy per-user licences only. Capacity becomes relevant for large models, for Copilot, for data engineering beyond Power BI, for embedding in an application, or when a large viewer audience makes it cheaper than per-user licences.
Core licensing rules
- People who publish or edit content in a shared workspace need Pro or PPU. Buying capacity does not remove this. The one exception is an application publishing through the REST API with a service principal, which needs no per-user licence.
- A Free-licensed person can view Power BI content only when both the report and its semantic model are hosted on Fabric F64 or larger, or on a Premium P capacity, and the person has the Viewer role on the workspace. On F2 through F32, and on every Embedded A SKU, every viewer needs Pro or PPU.
- Content hosted in a PPU workspace can be consumed only by PPU licence holders. This applies to anything built on that content, including reports in other workspaces that read a PPU-hosted semantic model. It does not restrict a PPU holder from sharing content that lives in an ordinary Pro workspace with Pro users. Moving PPU content to a P or F64+ capacity workspace lifts the restriction.
Per-user licences
| Licence | What it is | What it permits and limits | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power BI Desktop | Free Windows authoring application. No SKU. | Build models and reports locally. Paginated reports are authored in the separate free Power BI Report Builder. Nothing can be shared from either without a service licence. | Anyone building reports. |
| Microsoft Fabric (Free) | Free per-user licence, assigned automatically on first sign-in to the Fabric portal. Formerly "Power BI Free." | Personal My workspace only. Cannot publish to shared workspaces or share Power BI content. Can view Power BI content on F64+ or P capacity with the Viewer role. Can create and share non-Power BI Fabric items (lakehouses, notebooks) in a workspace on F or Trial capacity. Can author paginated reports and publish them to My workspace. | Individual exploration. Report viewers on F64+ or P capacity. |
| Power BI Pro | Standard paid collaboration licence. Managed in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Included in Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5. | Publish to shared workspaces, share, subscribe, build apps. Publish paginated reports to shared workspaces. Connect Excel PivotTables to a published model (Analyze in Excel), given Build permission on the model. Import-mode incremental refresh. In a Pro workspace on shared capacity: 1 GB semantic model, 10 GB storage per licence pooled at tenant level, 8 scheduled refreshes per model per day (REST API refreshes count toward this; manual Refresh now does not). Content in a Pro workspace can be consumed only by Pro or PPU holders. A Pro user working in a workspace on P or F capacity gets that workspace's limits and features, including deployment pipelines and XMLA. A Pro user cannot access a PPU workspace or PPU-hosted content at all, including through XMLA or Analyze in Excel. | Most creators and collaborating teams. |
| Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) | Pro plus most Premium features, licensed per person. Includes everything Pro does. | In a PPU workspace: 100 GB semantic model, 48 scheduled refreshes per model per day with no fixed cap on API refreshes, 100 TB tenant storage, a connection point for external modelling and scripting tools such as Tabular Editor and SQL Server Management Studio (the XMLA endpoint, read and write), deployment pipelines, advanced dataflows, real-time DirectQuery partition in incremental refresh, AI features (AutoML, Cognitive Services), BYOK when enabled tenant-wide. Does not include Multi-Geo, unlimited distribution, or on-premises Report Server. Does not provision Fabric capacity. Does not unlock Copilot by itself. | Analysts and data teams who need Premium features and can licence everyone who will consume the content. Microsoft's guidance: cost effective below about 250 such users. |
Capacity SKUs
Capacity is purchased compute and does not license any person.
| Option | SKU range | Purchase model | Status in 2026 | Licensing condition that matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Fabric capacity | F2 to F8192 | Azure. Pay-as-you-go billed per second with a one-minute minimum, no commitment. Optional 1 or 3 year reservation, bought in 1 CU increments. Pause, resume, and resize on demand. | Current. The capacity Microsoft sells today and directs all new capacity purchases to. | F64 and above let Free-licensed viewers consume Power BI content. Below F64 every viewer needs Pro or PPU. Publishers need Pro or PPU at any size. Supports all Fabric workloads at any size. Copilot from F2. Power BI Embedded is included with every F SKU. Report Server rights come only with an F64 or larger reservation. |
| Power BI Embedded | A1 to A8 | Azure. Billed hourly, no commitment. Pause and resume. | Still sold. Microsoft directs new embedding builds to F SKUs, which include the same embedding rights and add Fabric workloads, per-second billing, and secure URL embedding. | Free viewers are never permitted on an A SKU. In app-owns-data embedding the application authenticates, so end users need no licence. In user-owns-data embedding every viewer needs Pro or PPU. Cannot host content for secure URL embedding from the Power BI service. Not supported by Fabric Copilot capacity. |
| Power BI Premium per capacity | P1 to P5 | Microsoft 365 commitment, monthly or yearly. | Retiring. No new purchases since July 1, 2024. Non-EA renewals ended January 1, 2025. Customers on an active Enterprise Agreement may renew annually until that EA ends. Each subscription retires at the end of its current agreement term. | Free viewers with the Viewer role. Fabric workloads once Fabric is enabled. Includes Power BI Report Server. Not for new deployments. |
| Power BI Premium, organizational embedding | EM1 to EM3 | Volume licensing only, yearly commitment. EM1 and EM2 not sold directly. | Legacy. | For embedding in Microsoft 365 surfaces. No Fabric items. No free viewing. No Report Server. |
| Fabric trial | 4 CU (F4) or 64 CU (F64) | Free, 60 days. | Evaluation only. Not for production. | Includes a PPU-equivalent individual trial licence for users without PPU. Copilot, data agents, and AI functions are not available on a trial. When the trial ends, workspaces revert to the Pro type, non-Power BI items become unusable immediately, and Microsoft may delete them after seven days unless the workspace is moved to a paid F or P capacity within that window. |
| Power BI Report Server | No standalone SKU | Entitlement only. | Current. | On-premises report portal. Rights come from: a P SKU; a Fabric F64 or larger reserved instance; SQL Server 2025 Standard or Enterprise core licences; or SQL Server 2022 and earlier Enterprise core licences with active Software Assurance. Not included with Pro, PPU, EM, A SKUs, any F SKU below F64, or any pay-as-you-go F SKU. |
What happens when a P SKU expires
| Days after end | State |
|---|---|
| 1 to 30 | Grace period. Capacity runs at current size at no charge. Workspaces can still be reassigned. |
| 31 to 90 | Throttled. Interactive operations delayed. Data can still be exported. |
| 91 onward | All operations rejected. Data retained but inaccessible until workspaces move to an F SKU or the capacity is deleted. |
Buy the F SKU first, reassign and validate workspaces, then cancel the P SKU. Sovereign cloud customers are unaffected because Fabric is not yet available there.
Fabric to legacy SKU crosswalk
Capacity Units (CU) measure compute. This table compares compute scale only. An equivalent row does not mean identical licensing rights.
| Fabric SKU | CU | Power BI v-core equivalent¹ | Legacy equivalent | Max memory per semantic model² | Free viewers in the service? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F2 | 2 | 0.25 | none | 3 GB | No. Viewers need Pro or PPU. |
| F4 | 4 | 0.5 | none | 3 GB | No |
| F8 | 8 | 1 | EM1 / A1 | 3 GB | No |
| F16 | 16 | 2 | EM2 / A2 | 5 GB | No |
| F32 | 32 | 4 | EM3 / A3 | 10 GB | No |
| F64 | 64 | 8 | P1 / A4 | 25 GB | Yes, with Viewer role |
| F128 | 128 | 16 | P2 / A5 | 50 GB | Yes |
| F256 | 256 | 32 | P3 / A6 | 100 GB | Yes |
| F512 | 512 | 64 | P4 / A7 | 200 GB | Yes |
| F1024 | 1,024 | 128 | P5 / A8 | 400 GB | Yes |
| F2048 | 2,048 | 256 | none | 400 GB | Yes |
| F4096 | 4,096 | 512 | none | 400 GB | Yes |
| F8192 | 8,192 | 1,024 | none | 400 GB | Yes |
¹ Power BI v-core equivalents as published on Microsoft's Fabric licences page. Microsoft's Premium capacity page shows "N/A" for F2, F4, and F2048 and above because no Power BI SKU corresponds to them. Both are Microsoft sources; the licences page is the canonical licensing reference. One v-core equals 8 CU.
² Upper bound for one semantic model's in-memory footprint. Refresh roughly doubles a model's memory while it runs and queries need memory on top, so the practical maximum is lower. F512 and larger are not available in every Azure region.
Feature and limit comparison by hosting context
The column headings describe where the content lives, because that is what determines the limits. A Pro user working in an F-capacity workspace gets the F-capacity column.
| Capability | Free licence, My workspace | Pro workspace on shared capacity | PPU workspace | Fabric F capacity workspace | Embedded A capacity workspace |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who can publish or edit | Owner only | Pro or PPU holders | PPU holders | Pro or PPU holders, or a service principal via API | Pro or PPU holders, or a service principal via API |
| Who can view | Owner only | Pro or PPU holders | PPU holders only | Pro or PPU holders; Free with Viewer role on F64+ | Pro or PPU holders (user owns data); unlicensed end users only via app-owns-data |
| Max semantic model memory | 1 GB | 1 GB | 100 GB | 3 GB (F2) to 400 GB (F1024+) | 3 GB (A1) to 400 GB (A8) |
| Scheduled refreshes per model per day | 8 | 8, and REST API refreshes count toward it | 48; API refreshes have no fixed cap | 48; API refreshes have no fixed cap | 48; API refreshes have no fixed cap |
| Refresh duration limit | 2 hours | 2 hours | 5 hours; none via XMLA | 5 hours; none via XMLA | 5 hours; none via XMLA |
| Storage | Personal use | 10 GB per Pro licence, tenant pooled | 100 TB | 100 TB | 100 TB |
| Paginated reports | Author and publish here | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Incremental refresh, import | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Real-time DirectQuery partition in incremental refresh | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment pipelines | No | No; a Pro user can use pipelines only in a workspace on P or F capacity | Yes | Yes | Not verified |
| Connect Excel PivotTables to the model (Analyze in Excel) | Own models in My workspace | Yes, with Build permission | Yes | Yes; Free viewers on F64+ as well | User-owns-data viewers with Pro or PPU |
| External modelling and scripting tools connect to the model (XMLA read/write) | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Create non-Power BI Fabric items | Only in a workspace on F or Trial capacity | Only in a workspace on F or Trial capacity | No; PPU is not Fabric capacity | Yes, any F SKU | No |
| Copilot | No | Only if the user is assigned to a Fabric Copilot capacity | Only if the user is assigned to a Fabric Copilot capacity | Yes, F2 and above | No |
| Multi-Geo | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Report Server rights | No | No | No | Only with an F64+ reservation | No |
Refresh limits. On shared capacity the eight-per-day limit covers scheduled refreshes and refreshes triggered through the REST API, including Power Automate. Only a manual Refresh now from the service UI is exempt. On PPU, P, F, and A capacity, up to 48 refreshes per model can be scheduled and API refreshes have no fixed numeric cap, subject to capacity resources and queueing. The scheduler targets a start within 15 minutes of each slot but may delay up to an hour. DirectQuery and live-connection models import no data and need no data refresh. Direct Lake models refresh metadata (framing) on a schedule but do not import source data.
Copilot and AI
Copilot in Power BI and Fabric requires a paid Fabric capacity of F2 or larger, or a P1 or larger Premium capacity. The F64 minimum was removed effective April 30, 2025. Microsoft's wording: "A Power BI Pro or Premium Per User (PPU) license alone isn't sufficient. Copilot requires organizational capacity."
Either of these meets the requirement:
- Host the content on F2+ or P1+. Copilot usage bills to that capacity.
- Assign the user to a Fabric Copilot capacity. A Fabric Copilot capacity is an ordinary F2+ or P1+ capacity that a capacity admin designates to collect and bill Copilot usage for a named group of users. Users so assigned can use Copilot in Power BI Desktop and on Pro, PPU, Trial, P, and F workspaces, and can use Fabric Copilot and data agents on workspaces below F64. Embedded (A) license mode is not supported. Only one Copilot capacity per user. It must be in the tenant's home region.
Fabric data agents require a paid F2+ capacity or P1+ with Fabric enabled. Neither Copilot nor data agents run on a trial capacity or with a Free licence.
Copilot consumes capacity units from whichever capacity bills it, so heavy Copilot use on an F2 can throttle other work on that capacity. Capacity outside the United States or EU data boundary, which includes Canada, has Copilot disabled by default until a Fabric admin enables the tenant setting that allows processing outside the capacity's geographic region.
Embedding
The licensing outcome depends on how the application authenticates to Power BI.
| Pattern | How the app authenticates to Power BI | Viewer licence | Capacity |
|---|---|---|---|
| App owns data ("embed for your customers") | With a service principal or a master-user account. The application's own identity calls Power BI. | None for end users. | Any F, A, P, or EM. |
| User owns data ("embed for your organization", also Teams, SharePoint, PowerPoint embedding) | With each viewer's own Microsoft Entra token. | Pro or PPU per viewer, unless the content is on F64+ or P capacity, in which case Free plus the Viewer role suffices. | Any F, A, P, or EM. |
Discovery question to open with: do the viewers sign in to the portal with their own Microsoft identity? If yes, expect user-owns-data licensing until the application design proves otherwise. The decisive check is whether the app calls Power BI with the viewer's token or with its own.
Secure URL embedding and embedding in Teams, SharePoint, or PowerPoint do not need Embedded capacity. Secure URL embedding (File, Embed report, Website or portal) pastes a report into an intranet page with no capacity purchase: each viewer needs Pro or PPU, or the content must sit on a P, EM, or F capacity, in which case the normal viewer rules apply and Free viewing needs F64+ or P. It cannot be hosted on an A SKU. Embedding in Teams, SharePoint, or PowerPoint is user-owns-data and follows the same viewer rules.
Publishing to any capacity needs Pro or PPU for a human user, or a service principal through the REST API.
Sources
- Understand Microsoft Fabric licenses and capacity
- What is Power BI Premium
- Power BI Premium Per User
- Power BI service features by license type
- Data refresh in Power BI
- Configure scheduled refresh
- Incremental refresh and real-time data
- Paginated reports FAQ
- Power BI Premium SKU retirement
- Premium to Fabric migration FAQ
- P SKU migration decision guide
- Copilot for Power BI overview
- Fabric Copilot capacity
- Create a Fabric data agent
- Power BI Report Server
- Capacity and SKUs in Power BI embedded analytics
- Fabric trial capacity