Protect your Azure compute savings: effective July 1, 2026, Microsoft Azure will discontinue new purchases and renewals of Reserved Virtual Machine (VM) Instances for select VM series. Existing reservations are not affected and continue to deliver their discount until the end of their term.
Summary
- Starting July 1, 2026, new purchases and renewals of Reserved VM Instances (RIs) for select VM series will no longer be available
- Existing RIs already purchased continue to receive their reservation discounts for the remainder of their term
- Without action before July 1, 2026, impacted workloads will revert to pay-as-you-go pricing once their current reservations expire
- Alternatives include Azure savings plan for compute and migration to newer-generation VM series
What is changing?
On May 4, 2026, Microsoft announced that Azure Reserved VM Instances for several older VM families will no longer be available for new purchase or renewal from July 1, 2026 onward.
Reserved VM Instances let customers pre-commit to a specific VM size for one or three years in exchange for a significant discount compared to pay-as-you-go pricing. With this change, that commitment option is being retired for older VM generations that are progressively being superseded by newer, more efficient hardware.
Which Reserved VM Instances are affected?
The change affects two groups of VM series:
One-year Reserved VM Instances ending:
- Av2, Amv2, Bv1
- D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2
- F, Fs, Fsv2
- G, Gs
- Ls, Lsv2
One-year and three-year Reserved VM Instances ending:
- Dv3, Dsv3
- Ev3, Esv3
For all of the series listed above, no new reservations and no renewals can be processed after July 1, 2026.
What stays protected
There is no change to existing reservations. Any Reserved VM Instance already purchased will:
- Continue to deliver its reservation discount for the full remainder of its one- or three-year term
- Continue to provide cost predictability for the workloads it covers
- Remain fully manageable in the Azure portal for the rest of its term
Billing impact if no action is taken
If a Reserved VM Instance for one of the affected VM series expires after July 1, 2026 and no alternative is put in place, the underlying workload will:
- Automatically revert to pay-as-you-go pricing, which is materially higher (36-72% based on VM and region) than the reservation rate
- Lose the cost predictability previously provided by the reservation
- Continue running without interruption; only the rates change, while the availability remains unaffected
Once a series is removed from the reservation catalog, an auto-renewal request for that series cannot be fulfilled, and the workload will fall back to pay-as-you-go.
Your options going forward
Customers running on affected VM series have three main alternatives, which can be combined depending on the workload:
- Azure savings plan for compute: commit to a fixed hourly compute spend for one or three years and receive discounted rates across a broad range of VM families, regions, and operating systems. It is more flexible than a per-SKU reservation.
- Migrate to newer-generation VM series (recommended): move workloads from older families (such as Dv2 / Dsv2 / Dv3 / Dsv3) to current generations (Dv5/Dsv5, Ev5/Esv5, and beyond) to access better price-performance and continue using Reserved VM Instances where applicable.
- Right-size or consolidate: use the change as a trigger to review actual utilization of impacted VMs and either consolidate, resize, or decommission workloads before re-committing.
The right mix depends on workload predictability, lifecycle stage, and overall Azure consumption profile.
What you can do now
- Identify all existing Reserved VM Instances and check whether they cover any of the affected VM series
- Review the expiration dates of those reservations and identify which ones expire after July 1, 2026
- Decide on the right next step for each workload: Azure savings plan, newer VM generation, or right-sizing
- Act before July 1, 2026 to avoid a lapse in savings and a sudden shift to pay-as-you-go billing
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Sources
Overview of Azure Reservations: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/reservations/save-compute-costs-reservations.
Microsoft migration guide for D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, and Ls series: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/migration/sizes/d-ds-dv2-dsv2-ls-series-migration-guide.
Microsoft licensing information: https://www.schneider.im/software/microsoft/.