Create Microsoft 365 user accounts with PowerShell

This article applies to both Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Office 365 Enterprise.

You can use Microsoft Graph PowerShell to efficiently create user accounts, including multiple accounts.

When you create user accounts in PowerShell, certain account properties are always required. Other properties aren't required but are important. See the following table.

Create Microsoft 365 user accounts with Microsoft Graph PowerShell

First, use a Microsoft Entra DC admin or Cloud Application Admin account to connect to your Microsoft 365 tenant. The cmdlets in this article require the permission scope User.ReadWrite.All or one of the other permissions listed in the 'List subscribedSkus' Graph API reference page. Some commands in this article may require different permission scopes, in which case this will be noted in the relevant section.

Connect-MgGraph -Scopes "User.ReadWrite.All"

Create an individual user account

To create an individual account, use the following syntax:

$PasswordProfile = New-Object -TypeName Microsoft.Graph.PowerShell.Models.MicrosoftGraphPasswordProfile
$PasswordProfile.Password = "<user account password>"
New-MgUser -DisplayName "<display name>" -GivenName "<first name>" -Surname "<last name>" -UserPrincipalName <sign-in name> -UsageLocation <ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code> -MailNickname <mailbox name> -PasswordProfile $PasswordProfile -AccountEnabled $true

This example creates an account for the US user John Doe.

$PasswordProfile = New-Object -TypeName Microsoft.Graph.PowerShell.Models.MicrosoftGraphPasswordProfile
$PasswordProfile.Password = "3Rv0y1q39/chsy"
New-MgUser -DisplayName "John Doe" -GivenName "John" -Surname "Doe" -UserPrincipalName [email protected] -UsageLocation "US" -MailNickname "johnd" -PasswordProfile $PasswordProfile -AccountEnabled $true

Create multiple user accounts

1. Create a comma-separated value (CSV) file that contains the required user account information. For example:

   UserPrincipalName,FirstName,LastName,DisplayName,UsageLocation,MailNickname
   [email protected],Claude,Loiselle,Claude Loiselle,US,claudel
   [email protected],Lynne,Baxter,Lynne Baxter,US,lynneb
   [email protected],Shawn,Melendez,Shawn Melendez,US,shawnm
   

   Note

   The column names and their order in the first row of the CSV file are arbitrary. But make sure the order of the data in the rest of the file matches the order of the column names. And use the column names for the parameter values in the PowerShell for Microsoft 365 command.

2. This example creates user accounts from the file C:\temp\NewAccounts.csv and logs the results in a file named C:\temp\NewAccountResults.csv.

   # Import the CSV file
   $users = Import-Csv -Path "C:\temp\NewAccounts.csv"
   
   # Create a password profile
   $PasswordProfile = @{
       Password = 'Password123'
       }
   
   # Loop through each user in the CSV file
   foreach ($user in $users) {
       # Create a new user
       $newUser = New-MgUser -DisplayName $user.DisplayName -GivenName $user.FirstName -Surname $user.LastName -UserPrincipalName $user.UserPrincipalName -UsageLocation $user.UsageLocation -MailNickname $user.MailNickname -PasswordProfile $passwordProfile -AccountEnabled
   
       # Assign a license to the new user
       $e5Sku = Get-MgSubscribedSku -All | Where SkuPartNumber -eq 'SPE_E5'
       Set-MgUserLicense -UserId $newUser.Id -AddLicenses @{SkuId = $e5Sku.SkuId} -RemoveLicenses @()
   }
   
   # Export the results to a CSV file
   $users | Export-Csv -Path "C:\temp\NewAccountResults.csv" -NoTypeInformation
   

3. Review the output file to see the results.

See also

Manage Microsoft 365 user accounts, licenses, and groups with PowerShell

Manage Microsoft 365 with PowerShell

Getting started with PowerShell for Microsoft 365