How do I return the activations on my Industry/ Pro/ Enterprise license?

Unity licenses are intended for individual use and can be activated on up to two personal devices per user.

If you're seeing a "maximum license activation" error, it usually means you've reached the limit and need to remove the license from another machine.

Unity uses two types of licensing systems: modern Named User Licenses (NUL) and legacy serial-based licenses.

Named User Licenses
These are used with Unity’s Industry, Enterprise, and Pro plans. Once a license seat is assigned, the license is linked directly to your Unity ID, eliminating the need for serial keys.

• The license is automatically activated when you sign in to Unity Hub.
• It is automatically returned when you sign out.
• This makes it easy to switch between devices without managing activations manually.

To manage or reassign subscription seats, please see the article 'How do I assign a seat to a user?'

Serial-Based Licenses
This is the older system that uses a serial key that you can use to activate through the Hub or via the command line

• The license is locked to the machine it’s activated on.

• To reuse it on another device, you must manually return the license from the original one.

• Some users may prefer this method for scenarios such as automated testing and builds, or situations that require a manual activation.

The process for returning a license differs depending on how you activated it, either using the new licensing system or the legacy one.

Returning a Named User License activation
If your license uses the new system and you see an "Entitlement" activation listed in your Unity Dashboard, it means you've activated it using NUL.

To return your license, simply sign out of the Unity Hub on the machine you wish to deactivate. This automatically frees up the activation, allowing you to sign in and use your license on another computer.

Returning a Serial-Based license activation

If you activated with a serial key, the solution depends on where your subscription is managed.

To return activations for a license key housed on the Unity Cloud Dashboard, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to cloud.unity.com and sign in using your Unity ID credentials.
2. If applicable, switch to the organization you used to purchase by selecting your current organization in the top right corner > Switch organization > <organization name> 
   
3. Select Administration > Subscriptions from the left side menu.
   
4. Select your subscription. Note: If you do not see your subscription on this page, it is likely still housed on the ID portal. Click here to jump to your resolution.
5. Under the License tab, you will see the devices associated with your license (Named user license and serial key activations)
   
6. Select the box to the left of the machine you want to return > select Remove activations.
   

Subscriptions managed at id.unity.com

1. Sign in at id.unity.com.
2. Click My Seats on the left side of the page.
3. Under the Activation window, you can see how many activations you have used and which machines you have activated. Note: If you can't see your license key here, your subscription may be housed on the Unity Cloud Dashboard. Click here to jump to your resolution.
4. Click the checkbox next to the machine you want to remove and click Remove selected activations.

Alternatively, to remove all activations associated with your license key, click Remove all my activations.

Educational Grant, Perpetual, & assigned 'X4' licenses

To return the activations on your license key, follow the below steps:

1. Sign in at id.unity.com.
2. Click manage your other licenses. on the left side of the page.
   
3. Click the blue Remove all my activations button to release all the online activations currently associated with your license key. Alternatively, click Activations to the right of the screen to view and remove specific activations.
4. To remove a specific activation, click the checkbox next to the machine you want to remove and click Remove selected activations.