Fix license assignment issues

You might get an email that your Google service account has a license issue. If so, learn more about the issue and the steps to fix it.

Identify affected users and issues

The email has a table with your license-mismatch issues and the number of users affected by each issue. In your Google Admin console, you can download a list of affected users that shows the issue for each user.

Sign in to your Google Admin console.
Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
In the Admin console, go to Menu Dashboard.
Under Insights, locate the License mismatches for your domain card.
In the card, click Download list to download the list of users as a CSV file.

The file has 3 columns:

The first column shows the email address of each affected user.
Requested License shows the service your licensing rules tried to assign to the user.
Assigned License shows the license the user actually got. See the table below for details*.

Resolve the issue

To resolve each issue, you can get more licenses or reassign existing licenses. The steps for doing these depend on your billing type. After you make more licenses available, the licenses get assigned automatically to the right users.

Check your licenses and billing type

You can see how many licenses you have available and assigned on your Billing page. You can also see your billing type, which determines how to get more licenses and get help if you have questions.

Sign in to your Google Admin console.
Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
In the Admin console, go to Menu BillingSubscriptions.
Under Subscriptions, look for the subscription listed in the email:
- For subscriptions on the Annual Plan—The number of licenses you bought and the number assigned appear under the subscription name.
- For subscriptions on the Flexible Plan—The number of assigned licenses matches the number of users shown.
To determine your billing type, look to the right and below the licenses:
- Payment account: Offline appears below the licenses for offline billing customers.
- Contact Reseller to Modify Order appears to the right if you’re billed through a Google reseller.
- Direct billing customers don’t see either of the above.

Reassign or get more licenses

Use the links in this table to see the right steps for your billing type.

Action	Billing type	Steps to take
Reassign licenses	Any	Follow the steps to Assign, remove, and reassign licenses.
Get more licenses	Direct: Annual Plan	Follow the steps to Get more licenses.
	Direct: Flexible Plan	Contact Google Workspace support or Cloud Identity support.
	Reseller	Contact your reseller.
	Offline	Contact your sales representative, the collections alias on your invoice, or your account management team. If you don’t have their contact information, send an email to deal-orders@google.com.

Types of issues

To determine the user's specific license issue, look in the Assigned License column. Then refer to this table for a detailed description of the issue.

*Assigned license	Problem	Explanation	Example
The entry shows None.	The user has no license assigned.	Based on your organization-level licensing rules, you tried to assign more licenses to users in an organizational unit than the number available.	If you have 50 Business Starter licenses but tried assigning those licenses to an organization with 100 users, only 50 get a license. The other 50 get no license.
A different service appears from the one shown under Requested License.	The user is assigned a license assigned to a different service.	You have multiple subscriptions for the same Google service, such as multiple Google Workspace editions. Based on your organization-level licensing rules, you tried assigning more licenses to users in an organizational unit than the number available for one of those subscriptions. However, you have licenses available for the other subscription.	Suppose you have 50 Google Workspace Business Plus licenses and 50 available Google Workspace Enterprise Standard licenses. If you try assigning Business Plus licenses to an organization with 100 users, only 50 of those users get a Business Plus license. The other 50 get an Enterprise Standard license.
The same service appears as the one shown under Requested License.	The user has a license assigned, but not paid for.	Based on your automatic licensing rules, you tried to assign more licenses to users than the number of licenses you paid for.	If you have 50 Business Starter licenses but attempt to autoassign those licenses to 100 users, all users get a Business Starter license. However, only 50 are paid for and you need to buy licenses for the other 50 users.

*Assigned license

Problem

Explanation

Example

The entry shows None.

The user has no license assigned.

Based on your organization-level licensing rules, you tried to assign more licenses to users in an organizational unit than the number available.

If you have 50 Business Starter licenses but tried assigning those licenses to an organization with 100 users, only 50 get a license. The other 50 get no license.

A different service appears from the one shown under Requested License.

The user is assigned a license assigned to a different service.

You have multiple subscriptions for the same Google service, such as multiple Google Workspace editions.

Based on your organization-level licensing rules, you tried assigning more licenses to users in an organizational unit than the number available for one of those subscriptions.

However, you have licenses available for the other subscription.

Suppose you have 50 Google Workspace Business Plus licenses and 50 available Google Workspace Enterprise Standard licenses. If you try assigning Business Plus licenses to an organization with 100 users, only 50 of those users get a Business Plus license. The other 50 get an Enterprise Standard license.

The same service appears as the one shown under Requested License.

The user has a license assigned, but not paid for.

Based on your automatic licensing rules, you tried to assign more licenses to users than the number of licenses you paid for.

If you have 50 Business Starter licenses but attempt to autoassign those licenses to 100 users, all users get a Business Starter license. However, only 50 are paid for and you need to buy licenses for the other 50 users.

License assignment best practices

The following best practices apply if you have organizations with different licensing rules.

Check current licenses

Periodically review your users, making sure each is assigned the correct license—especially before and after changes to your organizational units:
1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.
  Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
2. In the Admin console, go to Menu DirectoryUsers.
3. Click a user.
4. Scroll to the Licenses section to view the user’s assigned licenses.
Before you add or move users, check the number of available licenses. See the steps above for checking your licenses and billing type.

Check for license issues

To check for any license issues, look at the License mismatches for your domain card. (See the section above, about identifying affected users and issues.) The data on the card gets updated about every 24 hours.

If license issues arise, a notification email is automatically sent within one week to all super administrators. It includes the affected users and specific license issue.

Still need help?

Contact the support option for your billing type:

Direct—Support is available 24/7. For Google Workspace, contact Google Workspace support. For Cloud Identity Premium, contact Cloud Identity support.
Reseller—Contact your reseller.
Offline—Contact your sales representative, the collections alias on your invoice, or your account management team. If you don’t have their contact information, you can open a case with the partner team. To open a case, complete this form.

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