Microsoft is introducing a new tenant setting that determines whether your Microsoft 365 customer data remains stored in Switzerland or may be stored regionally within the EU Data Boundary. The setting is disabled by default. If you take no action, you are thereby tacitly accepting regional storage starting December 14, 2026. For Swiss companies with requirements regarding data location, this item now needs to be added to their to-do list.
With the “Store Microsoft 365 customer data in-country” setting, organizations can choose between two options: Customer data remains in the tenant’s country (i.e., Switzerland), or Microsoft may store it regionally within the EU Data Boundary. Microsoft justifies this move by citing the need to ensure a high-performance infrastructure within the EU/EFTA region.
Important: In both cases, the data does not leave the EU Data Boundary. There are no changes to the commitments regarding data protection, security, compliance, and encryption. The only thing that changes is whether “Switzerland” or the “EU/EFTA region” is considered the storage location.
Learn more about this topic at Data residency setting, Microsoft Product Terms – Privacy and Security and EU Data Boundary.
Tenants in Switzerland, Germany, France, Norway, and Sweden are affected. The setting applies to Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Copilot, and Microsoft Copilot Chat – in other words, for practically all services that contain business data.
The setting can be changed at any time, even after the deadline. However, anyone who enables in-country storage only after December 14, 2026, must expect the data to be transferred back. According to Microsoft, this can take around six months. Anyone who needs data to be located in Switzerland (for example, due to regulatory requirements, customer contracts, or their own ISMS) should therefore make this decision before the deadline and not wait until an auditor asks about it.
Not sure which setting is right for your company? We’d be happy to assist you with the assessment and implementation in your tenant – contact us!
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