Not in the US, but seeing as you are undertaking a thesis, I assume you are a college or university student?

If you are a student, Microsoft offer undergraduate and postgraduate Azure grants: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/community/education/

If you are applying with a lecturer, they can request grants or passes for entire class: http://www.microsoftazurepass.com/azureu

Not sure how long it will take in each case, but I don't think they require a credit card (though there are restrictions on what you can do, so check it is suitable for your thesis first).

Good luck with your thesis!

Thanks but I doubt those would work, I cleared all of my courses years ago and I'm only recently going back to Uni to finally finish my thesis and get my degree.

Can you get a US number from http://voice.google.com and use it?

Well done on finishing your degree, great achievement.

If you are officially registered as a student, and have a student ID, it's worth a look at the grants, you may still be eligible.

I also want to try Azure, but I only have a prepaid credit card (I live in Europe, don't need it except for small Internet things) and Azure is the ONLY service that doesn't accept it. AWS, Google Cloud, Netflix, etc. all work fine, except Azure.

Took me days to figure that one out, because I only got a generic "Your credit card isn't valid" error message when signing up.

Yeah that verification sucks, but for some reason (fraud, etc, etc) we require it. One thing to note is the number doesn't actually have to be yours. If you can get anyone to recieve a text and give you the code you are good. If you still have trouble send me email. [email protected]

I'll try to reach out to some friends stateside, thanks for the tip. :)