Using Office Home & Student commercially: why it's not allowed
Home & Student is around €60 to €80 cheaper – and the wrong license for any professional use. What the license terms really say, what happens in an audit, and which edition you need instead.
On this page
Short answer: Microsoft Office Home & Student is licensed exclusively for private, non-commercial use. Using it in a company, for self-employment, or for part-time assignments violates the license terms – even if the software technically works perfectly. For commercial use, you need at least Office Standard or Office Home & Business.
What the license terms actually state
Microsoft differentiates its Office editions not only by functionality but also by allowed usage. Home & Student includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and is explicitly intended for private purposes, school, and university. The license terms exclude commercial use.
The decisive factor is not how much you earn or how often you use the software. The decisive factor is the purpose: As soon as a document is created in the course of gainful employment, its use is commercial.
Three practical examples
- Not allowed: A student writes her master's thesis with Home & Student – allowed. The same person uses it to write invoices for her freelance side job – no longer allowed.
- Not allowed: An association with a paid office creates its accounting with it.
- Not allowed: An employee installs Home & Student on their private laptop and works from home with it.
The last case is the most common – and the most expensive, because it rarely comes to light in the company until an audit is due.
What happens in a license audit
During an audit, the manufacturer checks whether a suitable license exists for each software in use. A Home & Student license on a commercially used workstation is considered underlicensing. Typically, this leads to relicensing at list price, sometimes combined with back payments for the past usage period.
The savings of about 60 to 80 € compared to a commercially usable edition are therefore disproportionate to the risk.
„Nobody had noticed until the audit: Three colleagues in the home office were working with a private Home & Student license." A managing director describes how a routine software check uncovered unlicensed workstations - including back payment at the full list price.
Which edition you need instead
All the following editions allow commercial use:
- Office Standard – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Suitable for classic office work.
- Office Home & Business – additionally OneNote. The most purchased edition for self-employed individuals and in home offices.
- Office Professional Plus – additionally Access and Publisher, for database and layout work.
Specifically: Office 2024 Home & Business covers the needs of most self-employed individuals. Those who don't need Outlook but still work commercially can find cheaper vintages in the overview of all Office licenses. For databases, Office 2024 Professional Plus is the right choice.
In summary
Home & Student is not a cheaper version of the same software, but a different license with a different allowed purpose. Those who work professionally need at least Standard. The comparison calculator clarifies which edition suits your case; the basics of license types are explained in the Office guide.
