Kurt Shintaku's Blog

UPDATE 3/23/2020:
Here’s some details on retention of data post expiration of an Office 365 subscription:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/Enterprise/office-365-data-retention-deletion-and-destruction-overview 

ORIGINAL POST JUNE 17, 2017:
When a subscription to Office 365 expires, as an IT Professional, it’s important to understand what the implications are, i.e. what’s going to happen after the subscription lapses?

The information I’m highlighting below is written documentation / material that is publically available online & accessible as a reference for yourself & for your organization.

Note: This is simply the information I’ve collected from Microsoft online sources.  It may not be complete & may not represent all scenarios.

“ONLINE SERVICES TERMS” DOCUMENTATION ON OFFICE 365 EXPIRATION
The Online Services Terms is a reference similar to the old “Product Use Rights”, except it’s for cloud services.  It’s a monthly updated Word document that you can download (see below) and contains the latest terms of service.  (Think of stuff like “SLAs”, “Usage rights”, “Microsoft’s obligations”, “customer obligations”, etc.)

• Online Services Terms
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Licensing/product-licensing/products.aspx

Regarding the expiration of an Office 365 subscription, according to the Online Services Terms, there are 3 bullets that standout to me around the expiration/termination of an Office 365 subscription:

• Page 4: Data Retention
  “Microsoft will retain Customer Data stored in the Online Service in a limited function account for 90 days after expiration or termination of Customer’s subscription so that Customer may extract the data. After the 90-day retention period ends, Microsoft will disable Customer’s account and delete the Customer Data.”
• Page 10: Privacy
  “No more than 180 days after expiration or termination of Customer’s use of an Online Service, Microsoft will disable the account and delete Customer Data from the account.”
• Page 14: Data Retention after Expiration or Termination
  “The expiration or termination of Customer’s Online Service subscription will not change Customer’s obligation to pay for hosting of Customer Data during any Extended Term.”

STATES OF OFFICE 365 ACCESS POST EXPIRATION
From the Office support web site, there is an article that describes the states that a tenant goes through once an Office 365 subscription expires.

• SUPPORT: “What happens to my data and access when my Office 365 for business subscription ends?”
  
  If your Office 365 subscription ends—either because it expires, or because you decide to cancel—your access to Office 365 services, applications, and customer data go through multiple states before the subscription is fully turned off, or deprovisioned. If you are aware of this progression, you’ll be better equipped to return your subscription to an active state before it’s too late, or—if you’re leaving Office 365—back up your data before it is ultimately deleted.
  …
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-happens-to-my-data-and-access-when-my-Office-365-for-business-subscription-ends-4436582f-211a-45ec-b72e-33647f97d8a3?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

OFFICE APPLICATION REDUCED FUNCTIONALITY MODE & EXPIRATION NOTICE
According to the Office support site, deployed Office applications will be affected as well, as described below:

• A subscription notice appears when I open an Office 365 application
  “After your subscription expires, Office will run in reduced functionality mode and will show Unlicensed Product notifications. You’ll still be able to open and print your documents but you won’t be able to edit them or to create new ones. You can reactivate your subscription at any time to get back to full functionality.”
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/A-subscription-notice-appears-when-I-open-an-Office-365-application-4CABE32C-F594-4C0E-9191-3D3ADE10CCEB