View or upgrade an Azure Bastion SKU

This article helps you view your current Azure Bastion SKU and upgrade to a higher tier. You can upgrade using the Azure portal or Azure CLI.

Important

Once you upgrade, you can't revert to a lower SKU without deleting and reconfiguring Azure Bastion. Plan your upgrade carefully and consider starting with the tier that meets your long-term requirements.

To compare SKU features and determine which tier is right for you, see Choose the right Azure Bastion SKU.

Hourly pricing starts from the moment that Bastion is deployed, regardless of outbound data usage. For more information, see Pricing and SKUs. If you're deploying Bastion as part of a tutorial or test, we recommend that you delete this resource after you finish using it.

Prerequisites

Before upgrading your Azure Bastion SKU, verify the following requirements:

Azure CLI: If using Azure CLI, install the bastion extension. The extension installs automatically the first time you run an az network bastion command. Requires Azure CLI version 2.62.0 or higher.
Permissions: You need Contributor or Owner role on the resource group containing your Bastion host.

Pre-upgrade considerations

What happens during an upgrade

Duration: The upgrade process takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.
Active sessions: Existing connections might be briefly interrupted during the upgrade. Plan the upgrade during a maintenance window when possible.

Cost implications

Upgrading to a higher SKU increases your hourly costs. Review the Azure Bastion pricing page to understand the cost difference between tiers before upgrading.

Sign in to the Azure portal.
Go to your Bastion host.
In the left pane, select Configuration. Your current SKU is displayed in the Tier dropdown. You can also see which features are available for each tier by selecting different options.

Run the following command to view your current Bastion SKU:

az network bastion show --name <bastion-name> --resource-group <resource-group-name> --query sku.name --output tsv

Important

When using az network bastion update, you must include the --location parameter matching the region of your existing Bastion host. If omitted, the CLI may default to a different region, resulting in an InvalidResourceLocation error.

Upgrade from Basic or Standard SKU

Basic, Standard, and Premium SKUs all use the same dedicated infrastructure, so upgrading between these tiers requires only a configuration change.

Portal
Azure CLI

Go to your Bastion host in the Azure portal.
Select Configuration in the left pane.
For Tier, select the higher SKU you want to upgrade to.
(Optional) Enable any additional features available with the new SKU.
Select Apply.

The upgrade takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.

Run the following command to upgrade your Bastion SKU:

az network bastion update \
    --name <bastion-name> \
    --resource-group <resource-group-name> \
    --location <location> \
    --sku name=<Standard|Premium>

To enable features during the upgrade, add the appropriate parameters. For example, to enable native client support and IP-based connection:

az network bastion update \
    --name <bastion-name> \
    --resource-group <resource-group-name> \
    --location <location> \
    --sku name=Standard \
    --enable-tunneling true \
    --enable-ip-connect true

Verify the upgrade

After the upgrade completes, verify that your Bastion host is functioning correctly:

Portal
Azure CLI

Go to your Bastion host and select Configuration.
Verify the Tier shows your new SKU.
Check that your desired features are enabled.
Test a connection to a VM to confirm connectivity.

Verify the SKU was updated:

az network bastion show \
    --name <bastion-name> \
    --resource-group <resource-group-name> \
    --query "{Name:name, SKU:sku.name, ProvisioningState:provisioningState}" \
    --output table

Confirm the provisioning state shows Succeeded.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues during or after the upgrade, see Troubleshoot Azure Bastion.

Next steps

Choose the right Azure Bastion SKU
Configure host scaling
Configure session recording (Premium SKU)
Deploy private-only Bastion (Premium SKU)
About Bastion configuration settings

Last updated on 2026-03-19