Thanks for your feedback on Single Sign-On(SSO). We last updated this idea in October 2025, and we’re sorry it’s taken some time for us to provide another. We will do our best to keep you more informed of progress as it continues.
Where SSO is today
We’ve built an SSO capability for accountant and bookkeeper partner practices using OpenID Connect (OIDC). We ran a closed beta with a small group of partners, which is now complete, and those partners are connected. We’re still confirming how and when other accounting and bookkeeping partners can access it. SSO isn’t currently available to businesses or IT providers. We’ll share access details in a future update once they’re confirmed.
What we’re looking at next
We’re exploring what it would take to offer SSO to small businesses. Business needs differ from accountant and bookkeeper partners’, so we’re looking at:
how a business and its users are set up in Xero
which businesses would qualify
how we’d check a company owns its email domain
how onboarding and support would work
Help us understand your needs
If you run or work in a small business, an accounting or bookkeeping practice, or are an IT provider, please take our short survey. It will give us a sense of how you sign in today, which identity provider you use (if any) and what you need from SSO. It takes about 5 minutes and closes Friday 11 December 2026.
We don’t have a timeline to share yet. We’ll share an update on the survey findings in the new year (2027).
Thanks for your feedback on Single Sign-On(SSO). We last updated this idea in October 2025, and we’re sorry it’s taken some time for us to provide another. We will do our best to keep you more informed of progress as it continues.
Where SSO is today
We’ve built an SSO capability for accountant and bookkeeper partner practices using OpenID Connect (OIDC). We ran a closed beta with a small group of partners, which is now complete, and those partners are connected. We’re still confirming how and when other accounting and bookkeeping partners can access it. SSO isn’t currently available to businesses or IT providers. We’ll share access details in a future update once they’re confirmed.
What we’re looking at next
We’re exploring what it would take to offer SSO to small businesses. Business needs differ from accountant and bookkeeper partners’, so we’re looking at:
It's genuinely disappointing that this has sat as a feature request for over a decade with no real progress for a company the size of Xero, serving businesses that take security seriously, that's hard to justify. Passwordless is where the entire industry has been heading for years now. Microsoft, Google, NIST, and virtually every major security vendor actively recommend passwordless authentication (FIDO2/passkeys, federated identity) over passwords, because passwords remain the single biggest attack surface for credential theft, phishing, and reuse. Still relying on a standalone Xero password, even with MFA bolted on, is already behind where the industry has moved. Native Entra ID/SAML SSO would be a first step, but Xero should be aiming at passwordless as the real end goal, not just SSO as a checkbox. At this point it's not a hard technical problem it's a prioritization failure, and one that's costing Xero credibility with the exact customers it should want to keep.
Thad Legg
supported this idea
·
It's genuinely disappointing that this has sat as a feature request for over a decade with no real progress for a company the size of Xero, serving businesses that take security seriously, that's hard to justify. Passwordless is where the entire industry has been heading for years now. Microsoft, Google, NIST, and virtually every major security vendor actively recommend passwordless authentication (FIDO2/passkeys, federated identity) over passwords, because passwords remain the single biggest attack surface for credential theft, phishing, and reuse. Still relying on a standalone Xero password, even with MFA bolted on, is already behind where the industry has moved. Native Entra ID/SAML SSO would be a first step, but Xero should be aiming at passwordless as the real end goal, not just SSO as a checkbox. At this point it's not a hard technical problem it's a prioritization failure, and one that's costing Xero credibility with the exact customers it should want to keep.