Copilot Business and Enterprise Signups Reopen — But From October 1, Seats Must Be Paid For Before Anyone Can Use Them

If your company tried to buy GitHub Copilot Business or Enterprise recently and could not get through the signup, you were not imagining it. On September 3, 2026, GitHub announced it is reopening signups in stages.

The same post carries a second rule that applies to existing customers as well — and that one matters more than the reopening.

Last verified: 2026-09-04

1. What is reopening, and for whom

The announcement reads: “We’re gradually reopening sign-ups for Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers paying by credit card or PayPal over the next couple of weeks.”

Two words to notice:

• Gradually — not all at once. Not seeing it today does not mean the announcement is wrong.
• Credit card or PayPal — those are the payment methods named. Other routes (invoicing, resellers) are not addressed in the post.

GitHub adds a line for anyone who comes up empty: “If your preferred option isn’t available yet, check back soon.”

As for why signups closed in the first place, the post gives no explicit reason. It does say GitHub is strengthening account vetting and updating billing experiences. We are not going to invent a cause it did not state.

2. Put October 1, 2026 in the calendar

This is the operative change. From October 1, 2026:

All new Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise seat assignments will require payment for each seat before users gain Copilot access.

In plain terms: you used to be able to add the person now and settle up later. From October 1, no payment, no access.

What that means depends on how you buy:

• Solo or small team: little impact. You already pay by card at the moment of purchase.
• Company with a procurement process: significant impact. If your flow is manager approval → IT provisions the account → finance pays at month end, then from October 1 a new hire may well not have Copilot on day one while finance catches up.
• Contractors brought in mid-project: you can no longer grant access first and reconcile later.

Action for admins: verify now that your billing method on file is valid and does not require a manual approval each time. After October 1, the length of your payment process becomes the length of a new hire’s wait.

3. Did prices change? No

The announcement is about signup availability and payment timing. There is no change to per-seat pricing in it. This is a process story, not a price increase.

(Copilot plan pricing and quotas are verified separately on this site — links below.)

4. Context: it has been a dense week for Copilot

Between September 1 and 3, the Copilot changelog moved a lot:

• 9/1 expiration dates for individual user budgets
• 9/1 Copilot code review can approve pull requests
• 9/2 content exclusions generally available in the Copilot app and CLI
• 9/2 enterprise-managed settings support any default model
• 9/3 Gemini 3.8 Flash ships; four older models slated for October 2 deprecation
• 9/3 Business and Enterprise signups reopen

Read together, the direction is clear: GitHub is tightening who can buy, how they pay, and which models they may use, all at once. Early October is the date to watch — seat prepayment starts October 1, four models disappear October 2, one day apart.

Related

• Four Copilot models retiring October 2
• Expiration dates for individual user budgets
• Setting up content exclusions in the app and CLI
• GitHub Copilot tool page

Sources

• GitHub Changelog: Reopening Copilot Business and Enterprise signups (2026-09-03)

Independent reporting on an official announcement, not sponsored.