3 Ways to Unassign User Licenses in Google Workspace

Licenses add up. When someone leaves or changes roles in Google Workspace, you need to remove access and free the seat without breaking anything. That means clear choices and repeatable actions.

This guide walks through three reliable ways to unassign licenses: quick changes in the Admin console, bulk updates with CSV or Organizational Unit (OU) moves, and automated removals using the Admin SDK or GAM. You’ll see when each method fits, plus pitfalls to avoid.

Table of Contents

• Use Google Workspace's UI
• Use Torii
• Use Google Workspace's API

Use Google Workspace’s UI

Here, you’ll use the Google Admin console to remove a Google Workspace product license from a single user. This follows Google’s Admin Help flow for managing licenses in the UI.

Confirm you have the right admin role

You need a role that can manage licenses, like Super Admin or License Administrator.

• There are two quick ways to check:
  • If you can open Billing or a user’s Licenses card, you’re good.
  • If you can’t, ask a Super Admin to grant the License Administrator role.

Open the user’s account

• Go to admin.google.com and sign in with your admin account.
• From the Admin console home, go to Directory, then Users.
• Search for the user and click their name to open their profile.

Go to the Licenses card

On the user’s profile page, find the Licenses section. Depending on your view, you’ll see Assign licenses, Edit, or Manage. Click it to open the list of product licenses tied to this user.

If you see a note that licenses are managed by a group, the user is getting a license through a Google Group. In that case, remove the user from that licensing group to unassign the license, because direct changes won’t stick.

Unassign the license

In the license panel, you’ll see products like Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise, and any add-ons such as Google Voice or Archiving and eDiscovery.

• Do this:
  • Uncheck the box next to the product you want to remove from the user.
  • If you also need to remove add-ons for that user, uncheck those too.
  • Then click Save. Confirm Remove or Unassign if a confirmation appears.

Google’s Admin Help notes that removing a product here immediately revokes the user’s access to the services in that product.

Verify the change

• Back on the user’s profile, the Licenses card should now show the remaining licenses or No licenses assigned.
• To confirm the seat freed up, go to Billing, then Subscriptions, and open the subscription. The available license count should reflect the change shortly.

What changes for the user

Once you remove a Google Workspace license, the user keeps their account but loses access to the services in that SKU, like Gmail, Drive, and Calendar. If you plan to assign a different Google Workspace SKU instead of fully removing access, assign the new SKU first, then remove the old one, so there’s no gap in access.

Use Torii

Instead of working directly inside Google Workspace, you can use Torii, a SaaS Management Platform, to unassign a license from a Google Workspace user. SMPs centralize SaaS subscriptions and integrations in one place, enabling you to programmatically onboard/offboard users, view subscription details, and more.

Unlike the manual approach in Google Workspace, Torii lets you automate this task so it runs as soon as a defined trigger occurs-such as a new hire, employee departure, or contract renewal. This saves time, especially when the action needs to be repeated often.

To unassign a license from a Google Workspace user directly via Torii, follow these steps:

1. Sign up for Torii

Contact Torii, and ask for your free two-week proof-of-concept.

2. Connect your Google Workspace account to Torii

Once your account is active, connect Google Workspace to Torii (assuming you already have an account). Here are the instructions for the Google Workspace integration.

3. Create a Torii workflow for Google Workspace

In Torii, create an automated workflow to unassign a license from a user in Google Workspace. Go to the Workflows tab, configure a trigger, and then add an action to unassign the license in Google Workspace. From then on, whenever the trigger is met, Google Workspace will be updated automatically.

Use Google Workspace’s API

Use Google Workspace’s API to unassign a license

Here, you’ll use the Admin SDK Enterprise License Manager API to remove a SKU from a user. This is the documented way to free a seat with the API.

1) Get an access token with the licensing scope

You need an OAuth 2.0 access token that includes this scope: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/apps.licensing. Use an admin identity or a service account with domain-wide delegation.

Set your token in an environment variable so curl is easier to read:

ACCESS_TOKEN="ya29.your_token_here"

2) List the user’s current license assignments

see which productId and skuId the user has. The API provides them, so you don’t have to guess.

Example curl is:

curl -s \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
"https://licensing.googleapis.com/apps/licensing/v1/user/[email protected]/list"

Typical response snippet:

{
    "items": [
        {
            "productId": "Google-Apps",
            "skuId": "Google-Apps-For-Business",
            "userId": "[email protected]"
        }
    ]
}

Note:

Userid can be the user’s primary email or their immutable user ID.

3) Unassign the specific license with licenseAssignments.delete

Use the productId and skuId from the list response to delete that assignment.

Example curl is:

curl -s -X DELETE \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
"https://licensing.googleapis.com/apps/licensing/v1/product/Google-Apps/sku/Google-Apps-For-Business/user/[email protected]"

If successful, the API returns an empty body with 200 OK or 204 No Content.

4) Confirm the license was removed

Run the list call again. The removed SKU should no longer appear.

Example curl is:

curl -s \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
"https://licensing.googleapis.com/apps/licensing/v1/user/[email protected]/list"

5) Common errors and quick fixes

• 403 Forbidden: Your token is missing the apps.licensing scope, or the caller lacks admin rights to manage licenses.
• 404 Not Found: The user does not have that productId and skuId assigned, or the userId is wrong.
• 400 Invalid Value: One of the IDs is malformed. Always use the exact productId and skuId returned by listForUser.

6) Optional: Find SKUs programmatically before removal

If you prefer to discover SKUs for a product, you can list them, then match against what the user has.

Example curl is:

curl -s \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
"https://licensing.googleapis.com/apps/licensing/v1/product/Google-Apps/skus"

Use the SKU you want to remove, then call the delete method as shown above. All methods here are documented in the Admin SDK Enterprise License Manager API under licenseAssignments.listForUser and licenseAssignments.delete.