AWS Charges After Free Tier: Why Am I Being Billed?
Quick answer
New accounts get up to $200 in credits over 6 months; when the 6 months end or credits run out the Free plan account closes, and a Paid plan account is billed pay-as-you-go. Find running resources in Cost Explorer and delete them.
Most likely fix: Check your plan and credits
How to fix it
Try these in order — the most common fix is first.
1. Check your plan and credits
- Open Billing and Cost Management > Credits
- Open the Free Tier page in the Billing console and check usage vs limits
- Note which plan (Free or Paid) the account is on
Did this fix it?2. Stop what is generating charges
- Cost Explorer > group by Service and Region
- Terminate EC2 and RDS instances, release Elastic IPs, delete NAT gateways, volumes and snapshots
- Check every region, not just the one you normally use
Did this fix it?3. Alert before the next bill
- Billing > Budgets > Create a zero-spend or monthly cost budget
- Enable Free Tier usage alerts in Billing preferences
Did this fix it?4. If you are done with AWS, close the account
- Sign in as root > Account > Close account (see our cancel guide)
- Remember Reserved Instances and Savings Plans keep billing until they expire
Did this fix it?
Symptoms
You see charges although you thought AWS was free, or a message that your Free plan is ending.
Why it happens
- Credits used up or 6 months passed on the Free plan
- You upgraded to the Paid plan, so usage beyond credits is billed
- Usage beyond always-free monthly limits
- Services not covered by the free offer, running idle (NAT gateway, Elastic IP, RDS, EBS)
- Older accounts: 12-month free offers that expired
This guide also covers
- aws charges after free tier
- aws free tier ended charged
- aws free plan 6 months
- am i being charged on aws free tier
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