Microsoft Entra ID Update Version March 2026

March 2026 Microsoft Entra updates include Agent Registry consolidation into Microsoft Agent 365, new backup and recovery preview, passkey and Conditional Access enhancements, and several tenant governance and identity management improvements.

• Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery protects against accidental changes or malicious updates by backing up critical directory objects, including users, groups, applications, service principals, managed identities, Conditional Access policies, named locations, agent IDs, and authentication/authorization policy.
• Synced passkeys in Microsoft Entra ID are now generally available, expanding phishing-resistant authentication options across devices.
• Microsoft Entra passkeys on Windows preview enables device-bound passkeys in Windows Hello for Entra sign-in.
• Passkey adoption campaigns with the Conditional Access Optimization Agent help roll out phishing-resistant authentication with report-only policies before enforcement.
• Microsoft Entra Connect Health now enforces TLS 1.2 and removes legacy TLS 1.1 references for security hardening.
• Microsoft Single Sign-On for Linux adds support for authenticating with phish-resistant MFA credentials.

• Microsoft Single Sign-On for Linux improves performance, reliability, and stability during authentication.
• Improved readability for Authentication Methods Policy Update audit logs now shows only modified properties and their old/new values.
• New M365 group creation experience in My Groups adds clearer self-service configuration for group, email, and security settings.

• Agent Registry and Agent collections in Entra admin center will be retired on May 1, 2026, with Agent 365 becoming the unified registry and control plane.
• Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery is available in public preview with daily snapshots, difference reports, and recovery jobs.
• Entra Hybrid Join using Entra Kerberos is available in public preview for immediate hybrid join at provisioning time.
• SCIM 2.0 APIs for Microsoft Entra ID are generally available for standards-based user and group management.
• Cross-tenant security group synchronization is available in public preview.
• Microsoft Entra passkeys on Windows is available in public preview.
• Passkey profiles in Microsoft Entra ID are generally available for managing multiple passkey policies.
• Tenant governance relationships and Related Tenants are available in public preview.
• Tenant configuration management administration portal experience is available in public preview.
• Secure add-on tenant creation is available in public preview.
• Tenant configuration management APIs are generally available.
• Just-in-Time Password Migration in Microsoft Entra External ID is generally available.
• Email and SMS OTP MFA in Entra External ID Native Authentication is generally available.
• New M365 group creation experience in My Groups is generally available.

• The existing registry Graph API will be deprecated and replaced by a new API powered by Agent 365; agents registered through the current API will need to be re-registered.
• No action is required for the Agent Registry retirement, and agent functionality remains available in the All agents view in Microsoft 365 admin center.
• Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery preview retains one daily backup for five days for tenants with Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2 licenses.
• Entra Passkey profiles can migrate existing passkey settings into a default profile.
• Cross-tenant group synchronization requires Microsoft Entra ID Governance licenses.
• Microsoft Entra passkeys on Windows is opt-in during preview and requires explicit passkey profile configuration to allow Windows Hello as a provider.
• Microsoft Single Sign-On for Linux removes the Java runtime dependency from the Intune install.
• Microsoft Entra Connect Health agents should be updated and servers configured for TLS 1.2 outbound connections.
• The new M365 group creation experience is rolling out to all tenants by end of March.

Product Information

Vendor: Microsoft

Product: Entra ID

Version: March 2026

Release date: Mar 1, 2026