Getting Started with the 2025 Google Workspace for Education Licensing Changes

In 2025, Google introduced a new licensing model for Workspace for Education. This tutorial walks you through the key changes and how to prepare your domain.

Steps

Understand the timeline

Identify your current license usage

Review new license types

Understanding required action

Retention Policy Review

Outcome

You’ll have a clear understanding of the changes and a plan to transition your domain smoothly. 

Understand the Timeline

November 2024
Google emailed a notice of this change to primary admins.

January 2025
New minimum purchase requirements for Workspace for Education Standard and Plus went into effect.

February 2025
Google introduced a new licensing model, requiring all users in your domain to be assigned a Workspace for Education Fundamentals license.

February 2025
Google added a new license type and status to Education domains: Gmail Only User and Archived User.

March to May 2025
Transition period for existing domains. 

May 13, 2025
Google released a new version of the GCDS client to support the new Fundamentals and Gmail Only licenses. More information here.

Identify Your Current License Usage

Use GCDS or Admin Console to export current license assignments.

Review New License Types

• Education Fundamentals (now finite)
• Gmail Only User
• Archived User

See, Google Workspace for Education Licensing Matrix (2025)

Understanding Required Action

In the short term, no immediate action is required. All existing users in your domain will automatically be assigned an Education Fundamentals license, and their ability to interact with Google services will not change. The timing of this change will allow organizations time to develop or update licensing plans throughout early 2025 and be ready for the 2025–26 school year.

We advise you to plan for license and user lifecycle management as you prepare for next year and your user rollover between school years. 

Education SKUs: 

1010070001 - Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals
1010070004 - Google Workspace for Education Gmail Only
1010340007 - Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals - Archived User

Auto assignment of Fundamental is turned ON by default for all OUs, so users will not experience any service interruption as long as licenses are available for newly created users. However, customers will eventually run out of available licenses without adjusting some settings.

protip The most important 1st step to avoid a shortage of licenses is to change all your suspended users to archived users. From now on, users will be archived, not suspended. When a user is moved to archived, their Fundamentals licenses are returned to the available pool of Fundamentals licenses. 

See, Archiving users in Education editions

The process of archiving users is the same as for suspending suspend users (CSV, Individually, GCDS, GAM, etc). If using a provisioning tool, the sku/product ID may need to be changed.

See, Education Fundamentals - Changes required within GCDW to support the application of Archived Licenses

Retention Policy Review

This change may require a review of your user retention practices and policies. We understand that many organizations have different policies for retaining student and staff accounts. Additionally, retention laws vary from state to state, so you may need to contact your organization’s legal counsel to understand your data retention requirements. Now that a finite cap on the number of Fundamentals, Gmail Only, and Archived User licenses will be in effect, retaining all user accounts indefinitely will likely no longer be feasible.

We recommend you review the Google Workspace for Education Licensing Guide for more detailed information on the state of license management moving forward.