Organisation Outside Collaborators

[Harvey-Fleming]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

Body

I have an organisation and am planning on moving a personal private repository onto the organisation, will the collaborators on the repository be automatically added as outside collaborators and will they need a seat in the organisation to be able to push and pull?

[henderson-01]

Yes to both questions. When you transfer a personal private repository to an organisation, here is exactly what happens to the collaborators:

• Automatically Added as Outside Collaborators: All existing collaborators on the transferred repository will remain intact. Because they are not members of the new organisation, GitHub will automatically classify them as Outside Collaborators for that specific repository. You (the original owner) will also be added as an outside collaborator if you aren't already an organisation member.

• Paid Seats are Required: If your organisation is on a paid billing plan (such as GitHub Team or GitHub Enterprise), yes, outside collaborators on private repositories consume a paid seat. They count toward your total license count exactly the same as a regular organisation member. (Note: If your organisation is on the GitHub Free plan, seats are free, so no additional cost applies). They will retain their existing push and pull access, but you will need to ensure your organisation has enough available seats to accommodate them to avoid any billing or access issues during the transfer.

[Sanak3]

When you transfer a personal private repository to an organization, any existing collaborators on that repository are automatically added to the organization as "outside collaborators" to ensure their workflow and access remain uninterrupted.
Regarding your question about seats, whether they consume a paid seat depends entirely on your organization's billing tier and the repository's visibility.
If your organization is on a paid subscription, such as the GitHub Team or Enterprise plan, and the transferred repository remains private, each outside collaborator will indeed consume a paid seat in the organization to maintain their ability to push and pull.
Conversely, if your organization operates on the GitHub Free plan, or if the repository is later made public, those outside collaborators will not consume a paid license, yet they will still retain their full access to contribute to the codebase.

hope it helped
(pls if you can, mark this as an answer, i am trying to get the galaxybrain badge)

[NicolasVitorP]

Hi @Harvey-Fleming! The short answer to both of your questions is yes, but there are a few critical details regarding billing and permissions you should know before hitting that transfer button.

When you move a personal private repository to an organization, all existing collaborators are automatically transitioned into Outside Collaborators for that specific repository. They will retain their exact same permissions (such as read, write, or admin) so their ongoing workflow won't be interrupted.

Regarding seats and billing, if your organization is on a paid plan (GitHub Team or GitHub Enterprise), yes, every outside collaborator on a private repository consumes a paid seat and counts toward your total license count. If you are on the GitHub Free tier, they will not cost you anything.

Two important things to keep in mind for a smooth transfer:

The 3-month invitation window: When the transfer happens, GitHub sends an automated invitation to those collaborators to accept their new status under the organization. They must accept this within 3 months, or their access will automatically expire.

Organization-level policies: Before transferring, double-check your organization's settings under Member privileges. Ensure that "Repository invitations" are allowed, otherwise the automatic transition of outside collaborators might be blocked by your org's security policies.