GitHub reopened Copilot Business and Enterprise signups with payment before use

GitHub said on 3 September that it is gradually reopening Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise signups over the next couple of weeks, and that it is changing how seat billing works at the same time. The reopening covers customers paying by credit card or PayPal.

What changed

GitHub's changelog says "all new Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise seat assignments will require payment for each seat before users gain Copilot access." From 1 October 2026 that rule applies to existing customers as well: every assigned seat, new or already in place, will incur an upfront charge on the next billing cycle. That is a shift from the previous behaviour, where a seat could be assigned first and paid for at the end of the cycle, with the user working during that gap.

Included usage on new seats will be prorated monthly to line up with the prorated seat cost, so a seat added mid-month gets a partial allowance rather than a full one. If usage on those seats runs past the included allowance, GitHub says extra payment may be required to keep going, and the option to purchase additional usage on top of the plan continues unchanged.

The changelog is explicit about what stays the same. Plan pricing itself is the same, and the way seat prorations are calculated is the same. The change is in the order: the invoice is now paid first, and the seat becomes active after.

Account checks are stricter

GitHub said it is "strengthening account vetting" to improve availability and reliability of Copilot services, without describing what the new checks are or how long they take. It also warns that "fully cancelling Copilot and returning later may trigger updated account vetting and billing behaviours", so a team that dropped Copilot and is thinking about signing back up should expect returning to look different from the first signup, and possibly to include a new vetting check.

Signups had been closed to new Business and Enterprise customers for a period before this post, which the reopening implies but does not date. Enterprise customers on invoice billing are not addressed in this changelog and appear not to be affected by the change.

Two practical things follow. First, an engineering manager onboarding a contractor or a new hire in the middle of a billing period should assume the seat cost has to clear before the person can open Copilot in their editor, rather than treating access as instant on seat assignment. Add some extra time to the onboarding checklist for the billing step, which used to take one click.

Second, teams that had paused Copilot to trial another coding assistant and are thinking about coming back should read the cancelling-and-returning line as a warning: the second signup may involve fresh vetting, and the price and terms offered on return may not match the ones they had before leaving. It is worth confirming both before switching off, because switching back on is no longer automatic.

Source

• Reopening Copilot Business and Enterprise signups, GitHub Changelog, 3 September 2026.