How to Change the Home Site in SharePoint Online (2026 Guide)

To change the home site in SharePoint Online (Microsoft Learn): open the SharePoint Admin Center → click Settings → click the current Home site → paste the URL of your new home site → click Save. Changes take approximately 10 minutes to apply. Important prerequisite: the new home site must first be configured as the root site of your SharePoint environment. If it is not already the root site, you must replace the root site first (Admin Center → Sites → Active sites → select current root site → ellipses → Replace site). You must be a SharePoint Global Administrator or SharePoint Administrator to make this change.

There are several scenarios that necessitate the change of the home Site in SharePoint Online. To properly change your SharePoint Online Home Site, we've created a tutorial below to walk you through the process so you can change the site properly. To start, the SharePoint Home Site is the landing page in which all users come first when they enter your organization’s SharePoint environment or intranet. It should have links to all important portals, resources, document libraries, conversations, news, and events in your organization. This makes it very important to plan and design your home site precisely. Before getting into how to change home site in SharePoint Online, let's first learn about how to prepare for the home site change.

What is a SharePoint Home Site and why would you change it?

According to Microsoft's official documentation, the SharePoint Home Site is the landing page for your entire SharePoint Online environment — the first page employees see when they navigate to your organization's SharePoint intranet. It functions as the organizational hub: housing links to news, events, important document libraries, key portals, and site navigation for the entire organization. Microsoft recommends designating a Communication Site as the home site because Communication Sites are designed for broad audiences with clean, visually engaging layouts.

Organizations change their home site for several reasons: a merger or reorganization requires a new intranet structure; the current home site was set up on a team site by default and needs to be moved to a proper Communication Site; or the organization is refreshing its intranet design with a new site build. Regardless of the reason, the process is the same - and it requires careful preparation to avoid breaking navigation or organizational-level features like Viva Connections.

Important constraints to know before changing your home site:

• Only one site can be designated as the home site per Microsoft 365 tenant
• The home site can be registered as a hub site but cannot be associated with any other hub
• The home site must be the root site (yourtenant.sharepoint.com) - if your intended home site has a different URL, you must replace the root site first
• Changes take a few minutes to up to 2 hours to apply tenant-wide
• Only Global Administrators and SharePoint Administrators can change the home site (Microsoft Learn: SharePoint Admin Role)

How do you prepare for changing the SharePoint home site?

Here are a few key things to consider prior to changing your home site.

• Users can change the home site either from the SharePoint Admin Center or from PowerShell.
• Users are limited to one site choice from their organization as their SharePoint Online home site.
• The home site can be registered as a hub site, however it cannot be associated with any hub.
• For changes to be applied, it can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to a maximum of two hours.
• Most importantly, you must ensure that the home site is configured as the root site of your SharePoint environment.

Below, we will demonstrate how to reconfigure your root site. 

Before making the change, audit the current home site for any custom navigation, web parts, or Viva Connections configuration that will need to be recreated on the new site. If the home site is connected to Viva Connections (the Teams intranet experience), changing it will reset the Viva Connections configuration - you will need to set it up again from the new home site. Document any custom mega-menus, promoted news links, or organizational assets stored on the current home site before the transition.

How do you replace the root site in SharePoint Online?

Before replacing the root site: Replacing the root site is a significant administrative operation. The existing root site is moved to a new URL (yoursite.sharepoint.com/sites/[oldname]) and the new site takes its place at the root. This process: (1) redirects the old root site URL to the new location, (2) preserves all content on the old site, and (3) may break any hardcoded links to the old root URL in documents, emails, or third-party integrations. Test in a non-production environment first if possible, and notify users of the change. 

Some notes before we begin: When you configured Microsoft 365 for the first time, the root site for SharePoint is automatically set to a Communication site. The default URL will start with [your organization name].sharepoint.com. All global admins in your organization are owners of the site.

Complete the following steps to change the root site:

• Go to the Microsoft 365 Admin center by clicking Admin from the app launcher on the left side of the page
  
  
  
  
• From the Microsoft 365 Admin center, choose SharePoint from the Admin centers section in the left bar
  
  
  
  
• From the SharePoint Admin center, click the Active sites option under the Sites section on the left
  
  
  
  
• Sort the URL column in alphabetical order
  
  
  
  
• The current root site will appear first in that list
• Select the root site and click on the more options ellipses at the top
  
  
  
  
• Choose Replace site, and enter the new root site URL in the URL of the site you want to use
• Click Save
  
  

Now that you have set the new site as the root site, you can now change the home site. Let’s learn how to change the home site in SharePoint Online.

How to Change the Home Site in SharePoint

• Go to the SharePoint Admin center and follow the steps above
• Click on Settings
  
  
  
  
• From the page that opens, click the site that is assigned as the Home site
  
  
  
  
• Paste the URL of the new site in the field URL of the site you want to use
• Click Save
  
  

Note: it may take approximately 10 minutes for these changes to apply.

How do you change the home site in SharePoint Online?

To ensure your success in changing your home site, it's imperative that you strategize and plan ahead for a seamless, precise site change. We have webinar below that covers the basics of SharePoint Communication Sites to provide you with more context on what to expect from these sites and how they can be employed as home sites.

Below is a tutorial video to support you in changing your home site in SharePoint. 

Try out these facilities and add your queries and thoughts in the comment section below. Have a great day ahead!

After changing the home site - verify these:

• Navigate to your tenant's SharePoint root URL and confirm the new home site loads
• Check the SharePoint start page (SharePoint.com) to confirm the home site link is correct
• Verify the Global Navigation bar displays correctly across connected sites
• If using Viva Connections in Microsoft Teams, reconfigure the Viva Connections dashboard for the new home site
• Test on mobile (Teams mobile app and SharePoint mobile) to confirm the home site loads correctly
• Notify users of the new URL if it has changed (especially if any bookmarks or saved links pointed to the old home site)

Why can't I see the Home Site option in SharePoint Admin Center?

This is a common issue with two main causes. First, ensure you are signed in with a Global Administrator or SharePoint Administrator account - the Home site option is not visible to site collection administrators or other lesser roles. Second, the Home site option in Settings was updated with the introduction of SharePoint's new admin center experience (Microsoft Learn) - if you are using an older admin center view, try accessing the new admin center at admin.microsoft.com → SharePoint → Settings. If the option still does not appear, your Microsoft 365 tenant may need to be updated; contact Microsoft support to confirm that the Home Site feature is available for your subscription level.