Microsoft outage stretches beyond 16 hours as company reports 'early signs' of stabilisation
The outage has affected users in 74 countries and territories, according to outage tracker Downdetector.
Microsoft logo in this illustration taken November 6, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Microsoft is working to fully restore services after a major global outage disrupted government agencies and businesses on Friday (Nov 13) - leaving users unable to access Outlook and other applications for hours.
The tech giant has reported continued recovery across affected regions, with broader improvements in North America and sustained improvements across much of Europe.
The outage has affected users in 74 countries and territories, according to outage tracker Downdetector.
Microsoft also reported encouraging recovery in the Asia-Pacific region, although some users could still experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery.
"Recovery efforts are ongoing across impacted infrastructure. We are seeing early signs of stabilisation, but service capacity has not yet returned to normal levels and health remains variable as traffic is carefully reintroduced," it said in an update - blaming server problems for the outage.
In Singapore, some government systems were disrupted, while DBS, UOB and OCBC reported email connectivity issues.
Singapore Airlines also warned of delays in responding to customer emails, although its flight operations and other services were unaffected.
The disruption also hit government agencies in Australia, Japan, and the United States, and caused disruptions at trading firms, delays to companies publishing their results and airlines warning customers of delayed communication.
TRADES HAD TO BE CONFIRMED BY FAX
As workers across Europe began their Friday, many grappled with the Microsoft outage, which disrupted government services, businesses and healthcare operations across the region.
In the United Kingdom, the government said it has contingency plans in place to minimise the impact on public services.
“We are working closely with Microsoft to assess any impact on government services, with robust contingency plans in place to minimise disruption,” a UK government spokesman told The Guardian.
The outage has also affected UK police, with some departments urging members of the public to report crimes by telephone rather than email or online.
Pharmacies have also reportedly faced difficulties communicating with some GP surgeries about prescriptions, leading to delays in obtaining medicines, according to The Guardian.
British insurer Aviva said it was putting backup plans in place for its earnings calls.
Stock exchange operator Euronext said its listing teams were experiencing email communication issues while Danish shipping company Maersk warned customers of delays to emails and updates.
Earlier on Friday, Japan's economy, trade and industry minister Ryosei Akazawa said there was no doubt that the outage would cause a "significant impact".
"Since this software is used by a vast number of people, we will closely monitor the situation and take every possible measure to address it," Akazawa told Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
US AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic said they had faced issues with Microsoft connectors, while airlines in India warned that customer queries may not be getting through and New Zealand said the outage forced a halt in the processing of visa applications.
The outage also disrupted fund management at Taiwanese securities firms, life insurers, and investment trust companies. One of the companies went as far as cancelling a bond repurchase transaction, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.
Another Taiwanese financial company resorted to using fax to confirm trades, a second source said.
In the US, electric truck maker Workhorse Group rescheduled its results on Thursday to Nov 16, while Switzerland's Richemont briefly delayed its first half results announcement on Friday.
DISRUPTIONS COULD HURT MICROSOFT OVER TIME
It is the second disruption to hit Microsoft's 365 services this year.
Josh Gilbert, a market analyst at trading platform eToro, said investors would likely deal with the outage for now because few customers can walk away from the Microsoft ecosystem overnight.
"The bigger worry is that this isn’t the first 365 outage this year, and if reliability starts to look like a recurring problem, it hands every IT department a reason to think twice before putting even more of their business in one provider’s hands," he said.
Microsoft faced an outage with its 365 services in January this year and also in October last year. Last month, it reported an outage of its Azure cloud platform that impacted its suite of productivity software, and a range of industries worldwide.
IMPACT ON EMAIL SYSTEMS
Australian Home Affairs and Cyber Security Minister Tony Burke said that Microsoft believed it was not dealing with a cyberattack.
"They believe they are dealing in some ways similar to what we saw with respect to CrowdStrike where there is an update that has gone awry," Burke said at a press conference.
"The impact that they are dealing with ... is very much on email systems," the minister added.
Australia's spy agency and federal police were among organisations caught up in the outage on Friday.
The CrowdStrike malfunction of 2024 was one of the largest internet disruptions, hobbling technology systems in hospitals, banks, and airports, highlighting the vulnerability of the world's interconnected technologies.
The Australian Computer Society (ACS) called for a national review of sovereign IT risk, with CEO Prins Ralston saying that small businesses may not have a workaround when Outlook fails.
"We need to know the systems that keep this country running won't simply fall over without notice," Ralston said, according to ACS publication Information Age.
Immigration New Zealand said it has paused the processing of all visa applications until further notice because of the global Microsoft outage.
The US House of Representatives said the outage impacted its users and its engineers were working with Microsoft, while Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masanao Ozaki told reporters that the outage was affecting the government’s information system infrastructure.
Microsoft initially said it was investigating outage reports "in the Americas," but later confirmed that the issue apparently affected "Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region."
Microsoft 365 is the company's cloud-based subscription service that includes popular applications such as Outlook and Teams.
"We've determined a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which is likely contributing to the connectivity errors," the company wrote on X.
"We're aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact," it added.
