Additional Deployment Regions on Azure for Students Subscription

Ryan Likhubi 0 Reputation points

Hello Microsoft Support,

I am using an Azure for Students subscription and am trying to deploy a Windows virtual machine for educational and learning purposes.

While creating the virtual machine, I receive a policy restriction indicating that my subscription can only deploy resources in a limited set of regions. The policy assignment is named "Allowed resource deployment regions."

Currently, the allowed regions appear to be:

  • Spain Central
  • Poland Central
  • Italy North
  • Central India
  • UAE North

I would like to know whether it is possible to enable access to additional regions, particularly East US, West US, Canada Central, or UK South.

My subscription is active, and I am only using Azure for learning and educational activities. The Azure portal message specifically states that I should contact support if I require additional or different regions.

Could you please confirm whether these restrictions are expected for Azure for Students subscriptions and whether additional regions can be made available?

Thank you for your assistance.

Kind regards,

Ryan Likhubi

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3 answers

  1. TP 157.5K Reputation points • Volunteer Moderator

    Hi Ryan,

    Unfortunately Azure for Students is restricted to small number of regions (typically five) for capacity reasons and is blocked from making Quota requests. Yes, this is normal and expected limitation of Azure for Students subscription.

    One option to allow you to use different/more regions would be to create separate Pay-As-You-Go subscription and only use that when you need to deploy a resource that you cannot deploy to one of your five allowed regions in your Azure for Students. If you do this you need to verify pricing before creating any resources and make sure to delete resources immediately after you are finished using them.

    Please click Accept Answer and upvote if the above was helpful.

    Thanks.

    -TP

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  2. SUNOJ KUMAR YELURU 18,336 Reputation points • MVP • Volunteer Moderator

    Hello @Ryan Likhubi,

    Thank you for reaching out Q&A forum.

    For learning and educational purposes, the region usually doesn't matter. Simply select one of your 5 allowed regions when creating the VM:

    In the Azure Portal → Create a virtual machine

    Under Region, select Spain Central, Poland Central, or Italy North

    Continue with the rest of your VM configuration

    For a Windows VM used for learning, Spain Central and Poland Central typically have good VM SKU availability, including Standard_B2s (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM) which is well-suited for educational use.

    Check Which VM Sizes Are Available in Your Allowed Regions

    Some VM sizes may not be available in all 5 of your regions. Use the Azure CLI to check:

    az vm list-skus \

    --location spaincentral \

    --size Standard_B \

    --output table

    If this answers your query, do click Accept Answer and Up-Vote for the same. And, if you have any further query do let us know.

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  3. AI answer

    These restrictions are expected for Azure for Students and other Azure Program subscriptions.

    Azure Program offerings such as Azure for Students, Azure Pass, Imagine, MPN, BizSpark, Microsoft for Startups, and Visual Studio/ MSDN subscriptions have access only to a limited set of regions. This is a platform policy and explains why only a small list of regions (like Spain Central, Poland Central, etc.) is available when deploying your VM.

    For Azure Program subscriptions, regions such as East US, West US, Canada Central, or UK South might not be available by default. When a region is restricted by policy, it cannot be enabled directly by the customer in the portal.

    However, if there is a valid business or educational reason to use additional regions, it is possible to request access:

    1. In the Azure portal, open Help + support.
    2. Create a new support request.
    3. Choose the support topic related to region optimization or region access (for example, as described for other services under region optimization or Azure program regions).
    4. Clearly state the subscription type (Azure for Students), the regions currently allowed, and the additional regions requested (for example, East US, West US, Canada Central, UK South), and that the usage is for learning/educational purposes.

    The request is then reviewed, and a response is provided based on the information in the form. If the request is not approved, resources must be deployed only in the currently allowed regions.

    References:

    AI-generated content may be incorrect. Read our transparency notes for more information.
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