Unmanaged developer environments are ending: what to do before December 15

Small developer desks moving along a path into a fenced, lit enclosure, while the desks left outside fade away next to an hourglass.

The free developer environment that came with the Power Apps Developer Plan is going away. Unmanaged developer environments can no longer be created from November 15, 2026, they are suspended from December 15, 2026 and deleted from January 15, 2027. This article explains who is affected, what the two ways out cost, and gives a checklist for admins and for the developers and consultants who keep their prototypes, PCF test harnesses and plug-in sandboxes in one of these environments.

What Microsoft announced

The change is listed in Important changes (deprecations) coming in Power Platform. It covers every developer environment that is not a managed environment, including the one Power Platform creates when you sign up for the Developer Plan. It happens in three phases:

Date	What happens
November 15, 2026	Creation ends. Signing up for the Developer Plan no longer creates an environment, and no new unmanaged developer environment can be created from Power Apps, the admin center, PowerShell or the Power Platform CLI.
December 15, 2026	Existing unmanaged developer environments are suspended. Their apps, flows, agents, Power Pages developer sites and data are no longer available.
January 15, 2027	Suspended environments are deleted.

The developer environment type does not disappear. It survives only as a managed developer environment, and from November 15 each user can create only one of them. Existing managed developer environments are not touched, even when a user already has several.

Microsoft's reason is governance: unmanaged developer environments sit outside the controls admins rely on, such as Managed Environments policies, usage insights and sharing limits. Bringing all development into managed environments gives admins one consistent view of the tenant.

Who is affected, and who is not

You are affected if you own, or your makers work in, a developer environment whose Managed property is No. In practice that is:

the personal environment you created when you signed up for the Developer Plan, often years ago, to try a feature or keep a demo;
the up to three developer environments a Developer Plan user could create in the admin center until now;
developer environments that a team uses as a shared sandbox because they were free.

You are not affected by this change if your environment is:

a developer environment that is already a managed environment, including the personal environments that environment routing creates, since they are managed by default;
a production, sandbox, trial or default environment.

Solutions you export before the suspension are also safe: they are files, and you can import them anywhere.

Note that inactivity was already a risk. The Developer Plan guide reminds that developer environments without activity for 30 days are disabled automatically. The new rule is different: unmanaged developer environments are suspended on December 15 regardless of activity.

The two ways out

For each environment you still need, there are two options before December 15. Both keep your work; they differ in cost and in what you keep.

Option 1: convert it to a managed environment

Enabling Managed Environments on the developer environment keeps everything in place: apps, flows, agents, data, and the environment remains a developer environment. Microsoft calls it the recommended path when licensing allows it.

The catch is licensing. Managed Environments use rights are not included in the Developer Plan. According to Licensing requirements for managed environments, every user who runs an app or a cloud flow in a managed environment needs a Power Apps Premium or Power Automate Premium licence, a qualifying Dynamics 365 Enterprise licence, or the environment needs capacity plans such as per app or per flow allocated to it. Building and previewing an app or a flow in a managed developer environment does not require a premium licence; running it does, and that includes the maker running their own app.

For most consultants and developers working for a Dynamics 365 customer this is not an obstacle: a Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise or Customer Service Enterprise licence, for example, is on the qualifying list. For a freelance developer who relied only on the free plan, it is a real cost.

Licensing enforcement is also tightening. The same page states that, starting February 2027, users without an appropriate licence are blocked from opening apps in managed environments, after in-app notifications that started in June 2026. Converting an environment and leaving its users unlicensed only postpones the problem by a few weeks.

Only a Power Platform Administrator or Dynamics 365 Administrator can enable Managed Environments. Environment admins and delegated admins cannot. In the admin center, select Manage > Environments, open the menu of the environment, select Enable Managed Environments, configure the settings and select Enable. With the admin PowerShell module, the documented script is:

# Requires the Microsoft.PowerApps.Administration.PowerShell module and a Power Platform admin account
$GovernanceConfiguration = [pscustomobject] @{
    protectionLevel = "Standard"
    settings = [pscustomobject]@{
        extendedSettings = @{}
    }
}

Set-AdminPowerAppEnvironmentGovernanceConfiguration `
    -EnvironmentName 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 `
    -UpdatedGovernanceConfiguration $GovernanceConfiguration

Developer environments do not need Dataverse to become managed; production, sandbox and trial environments do.

Option 2: move the solutions elsewhere

If nobody has the licences, export what matters and import it into another environment: a sandbox of your organisation, or the customer's development environment. This is ordinary ALM, and it is also a good moment to check that everything you care about is actually in a solution. Unmanaged customisations made outside a solution, sample data and connection references do not travel by themselves.

With the Power Platform CLI, the export of one solution looks like this:

# Sign in to the developer environment that will be suspended
pac auth create --environment https://contoso-dev.crm.dynamics.com

# List the solutions, then export each one you want to keep (unmanaged, to keep editing it)
pac solution list
pac solution export --name ContosoTools --path ./backup/ContosoTools.zip --managed false

Data is not part of a solution. If the environment holds test data you want to keep, export it separately (with the Configuration Migration tool, a dataflow or a simple Excel export) before December 15.

For short experiments with premium features, Microsoft points to standard trial environments, which remain available. Remember that a trial expires: export your solutions before the end.

Power Pages sites

Power Pages developer sites follow the environment: they are suspended and deleted with it. Microsoft's guidance is to convert the environment to a managed environment before December 15 if you want to keep a site. Otherwise, download the site configuration with pac pages download and keep it in source control.

Checklist for admins

Find the environments. In the Power Platform admin center, go to Manage > Environments and filter on Type = Developer and Managed = No. The Last activity column tells you which ones are still used.
Decide per environment: convert (the users have qualifying licences), move (they do not), or let it go (it is empty or abandoned). Tell the owners before December 15, not after.
Give makers a replacement. Turn on environment routing (Manage > Tenant settings > Environment routing) so that makers land in their own managed developer environment when they open Power Apps, Power Automate or Copilot Studio. Each rule targets everyone or specific security groups and assigns the new environments to an environment group, whose rules they inherit. These environments come with preset settings: sharing limited to five individuals and no security groups, solution checker set to Warn, usage insights on. They do not count against the tenant's Dataverse capacity.
Review who can create developer environments. The Environment assignments: Developer tenant setting now controls who can create managed developer environments. It does not affect environment routing.
Check the licences of the users of every environment you convert, with the Users requiring licenses in Managed Environments report under Licensing > Power Apps, before the February 2027 enforcement.

Checklist for developers and consultants

In the Power Platform admin center, check which of your developer environments show Managed = No.
Export every solution you want to keep, unmanaged, and commit the files (or their unpacked form, with pac solution unpack) to a repository. Do it now, even if you plan to convert: it costs minutes and protects you against a missed date.
Export the test data you cannot recreate.
Ask your admin, or your customer's, for a managed developer environment or a sandbox. If your organisation uses environment routing, you may already have one: it opens when you start Power Apps.
Update your onboarding notes and training material: "sign up for the free Developer Plan and you get an environment" is no longer true from November 15.

What changes for training and community work

The Developer Plan itself still exists, and the plan guide still describes its features and limits (2 GB of database, 750 flow runs per month). But since signing up no longer creates an environment, it no longer gives a free personal playground by itself. Trainers, students and community speakers who relied on it will need a trial environment, an environment provided by their organisation, or a licensed managed developer environment. Plan this before your next workshop rather than on the day.

Key takeaways

As of November 15, 2026, no new unmanaged developer environment can be created; existing ones are suspended on December 15, 2026 and deleted from January 15, 2027, whatever their activity.
Managed developer environments, including those created by environment routing, are not affected. From now on each user can create only one.
Converting keeps everything but requires premium licences to run apps and flows; the Developer Plan does not include them.
Whatever you decide, export your solutions and test data now. A zip file in a repository is the only option that does not depend on a date or a licence.

Researched and drafted with AI assistance, then reviewed, edited and published by a human.

Sources

Important changes (deprecations) coming in Power Platformlearn.microsoft.com
Power Apps Developer Plan Guide: Features and Benefitslearn.microsoft.com
Licensing requirements for managed environmentslearn.microsoft.com
Enable managed environmentslearn.microsoft.com
Environment routinglearn.microsoft.com
Control environment creation and managementlearn.microsoft.com