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---
stage: Growth
group: Conversion
info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#designated-technical-writers
type: howto
---
# Activate GitLab EE with a license **(STARTER ONLY)**
To activate all GitLab Enterprise Edition (EE) functionality, you need to upload
a license. Once you've received your license from GitLab Inc., you can upload it
by **signing into your GitLab instance as an admin** or add it at
installation time.
The license has the form of a base64 encoded ASCII text with a `.gitlab-license`
extension and can be obtained when you [purchase one](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) or when you sign
up for a [free trial](https://about.gitlab.com/free-trial/).
NOTE: **Note:**
As of GitLab Enterprise Edition 9.4.0, a newly-installed instance without an
uploaded license will only have the Core features active. A trial license will
activate all Ultimate features, but after
[the trial expires](#what-happens-when-your-license-expires), some functionality
will be locked.
## Uploading your license
The very first time you visit your GitLab EE installation signed in as an admin,
you should see a note urging you to upload a license with a link that takes you
straight to **Admin Area > License**.
Otherwise, you can:
1. Navigate manually to the **Admin Area** by clicking the wrench icon in the menu bar.
1. And then going to the **License** tab and click on **Upload New License**.
1. If you've received a `.gitlab-license` file, you should have already downloaded
it in your local machine. You can then upload it directly by choosing the
license file and clicking the **Upload license** button. In the image below,
you can see that the selected license file is named `GitLab.gitlab-license`.
If you've received your license as plain text, you need to select the
"Enter license key" option, copy the license, paste it into the "License key"
field and click **Upload license**.
## Add your license at install time
A license can be automatically imported at install time, by placing a file named
`Gitlab.gitlab-license` in `/etc/gitlab/` for Omnibus, or `config/` for source installations.
It is also possible to specify a custom location and filename for the license.
Source installations should set the `GITLAB_LICENSE_FILE` environment
variable with the path to a valid GitLab Enterprise Edition license.
```shell
export GITLAB_LICENSE_FILE="/path/to/license/file"
```
Omnibus installations should add this entry to `gitlab.rb`:
```ruby
gitlab_rails['initial_license_file'] = "/path/to/license/file"
```
CAUTION: **Caution:**
These methods will only add a license at the time of installation. Use the
Admin Area in the web user interface to renew or upgrade licenses.
---
Once the license is uploaded, all GitLab Enterprise Edition functionality
will be active until the end of the license period. When that period ends, the
instance will [fall back](#what-happens-when-your-license-expires) to Core-only
functionality.
You can review the license details at any time in the License section of the
Admin Area.
## Notification before the license expires
One month before the license expires, a message informing when the expiration
is due to, will start appearing to GitLab admins. Make sure that you update your
license, otherwise you will miss all the paid features if it expires.
## What happens when your license expires
In case your license expires, GitLab will lock down some features like Git pushes,
issue creation, etc., and a message to inform of the expired license will be
presented to all admins.
In order to get back all the previous functionality, a new license must be uploaded.
To fall back to having only the Core features active, you'll need to delete the
expired license(s).
## License history
It's possible to upload and view more than one license,
but only the latest license will be used as the active license.
## Troubleshooting
### There is no License tab in the Admin Area
If you originally installed Community Edition rather than Enterprise Edition you will need to
[upgrade to Enterprise Edition](../../update/README.md#community-to-enterprise-edition)
before uploading your license.
GitLab.com users cannot upload and use a self-managed license. If you
wish to use paid features on GitLab.com, a separate subscription may be
[purchased](../../subscriptions/index.md#subscribe-to-gitlabcom).
### Users exceed license limit upon renewal
If you've added new users to your GitLab instance prior to renewal you may need to
purchase additional seats to cover those users. If this is the case and a license
without enough users is uploaded a message is displayed prompting you to purchase
additional users. More information on how to determine the required number of users
and how to add additional seats can be found in the
[licensing FAQ](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/licensing-faq/).
|
