Migrate license from one cloud instance to another

[Jesús Jorge Muñoz]

Hi all,

My team purchased a license for Jira Software a few days ago, but for some reasons we need to change our instance's URL. I googled for ways to do that, and I found this link where it says that we need to sign up for a new site with the desired URL, and migrate all the data between instances.

I've already done that, but I saw that the new site has a current trial version license, and the old instance still has its license. As we don't want the old instance to be licensed anymore, is there a way to migrate one license to another? Or do I need to purchase a new license and request a refund for the old one?

Thanks in advance.

[Andy Heinzer · Accepted solution]

Did you buy a Jira Server license?  Or did you purchase a Jira Cloud instance?   Since it isn't clear to me just yet, I thought I would explain each a bit more to better understand your situation here.

In a Jira Cloud instance, Atlassian hosts these sites directly.  All of these sites have either a jira.com or atlassian.net domain name.  Checking the URL the site operates on is the easiest way to determine if you have a Cloud instance of Jira. I do not believe that you can move the Cloud license between different Cloud instances.  If you do have a Jira Cloud instance (hosted by Atlassian), then I would recommend following that guide and then creating a support request to the Customer Advocates team at Atlassian.  You can do that by going to https://support.atlassian.com and select Billing/Licensing.  

However this is different in Jira Server.  These are installations that you either host yourself or you might use a third party hosting site such as Contegix, Amazon's AWS, Microsoft Azure, among many more possible sites.  

You can migrate a Server license key between different instances.  You just need to activate the license key on the new instance and then remove that license key from the old instance. 

For Jira Server, you do have to apply a license key either at the time of installation or upgrade in order to complete that install/upgrade process.   Server license keys are obtained by going to the https://my.atlassian.com site.   The license keys for your account are only visible to the billing and the technical contacts on the account.   If you do not see such a license key in your account, but you are sure your organization has such a license key, then again, this is something you can reach out to the Atlassian Customer Advocates support team for help with.  You can create a service request at https://support.atlassian.com  I would recommend selecting the billing and licensing questions and that team can help you either locate the license or the contact that you would need to reach out to obtain this key.

There is no means to convert or migrate a license for Jira Cloud into Jira Server or vice versa.   Technically these are different products, and the Cloud Licensing FAQ explains that there cannot be converted between these two products.

[Jesús Jorge Muñoz]

Thanks for your reply Andrew.

Our license was a Cloud license. I have contacted the Atlassian Support team and have already requested the refund.

Very helpful response!