Lost access to VS Marketplace publisher account after cancelling Azure subscription

Publisher access is tied to the identity and tenant behind the Visual Studio subscription/Azure subscription that was used when the publisher account was created. After canceling or removing that subscription, several things can happen that match the described behavior:

• Visual Studio subscription removal stops associated benefits and can affect Azure access and assets.
• If the identity or tenant used for the subscription is deleted or anonymized, access to the subscription and related benefits (including Marketplace publisher management) is lost.

From the available information, the only supported ways to restore control are:

1. Restore or replace the subscription/tenant backing the identity
   • If the Visual Studio subscription was removed, it can be renewed or a new subscription purchased so that the same identity regains a valid subscription and Azure access.
   • If the Azure subscription was converted or disabled, it can be reenabled as a pay-as-you-go subscription by following the documented steps for switching the Azure offer. This requires attaching a payment method.
2. Move assets to a different active subscription/tenant
   • Before a subscription is disabled, Azure resources and dev/test benefits can be moved to another Azure subscription associated with a different Visual Studio subscription or tenant. Once disabled and anonymized, access to assets is lost.
3. Open a support case with Microsoft
   • For Visual Studio subscription and benefit issues (including Marketplace-related access tied to those subscriptions), support is provided via the Visual Studio subscription portal and Visual Studio Support. These channels are the path to investigate whether the publisher identity can be reconnected to a different active subscription or tenant.

If the tenant or identity used for the publisher account has already been anonymized or deleted (for example, because the subscription expired and the associated account was removed from the tenant), the documentation indicates that access to the subscription and its benefits is lost, and recovery options are limited to working with Microsoft support to see whether any reassignment is possible.

References:

• Maintain a Visual Studio subscription for Azure credit access
• What happens when your Visual Studio subscription is removed?
• Troubleshooting suggestions for signing in to Visual Studio subscriptions