Hi everyone,
I’m trying to understand the practical path to enabling European data residency for OpenAI API projects.
The official documentation says that eligible API customers can use data residency in Europe, and that Europe uses the eu.api.openai.com endpoint for supported API traffic. However, I’m still unclear on what “eligible customer” means in practice and how to actually start the eligibility process.
My situation:
- I’m based in the EU / building for EU customers.
- I need to understand whether OpenAI API data can be stored and processed in Europe for compliance reasons.
- I contacted OpenAI sales/contact channels, but so far I only received an automated “getting started with the API” email pointing me to the docs, playground, and billing page.
- I’m not asking for general API onboarding; I’m specifically asking about EU data residency eligibility.
My questions:
- Is EU data residency for the OpenAI API currently available only to Enterprise agreement customers?
- Is Zero Data Retention approval required before EU data residency can be enabled?
- What is the correct channel to request an eligibility review for API data residency?
- Can this be enabled for an existing organization/project, or does it require creating a new project after access is granted?
- Has anyone here successfully obtained access to EU API data residency? If yes, what was the process and approximate timeline?
I understand the community forum may not be an official support channel, but I’d appreciate any pointers from people who have gone through this or know the correct route.
Thanks.