AWS Free Tier in 2026: Credits, Limits, and Hidden Costs
AWS changed how its Free Tier works in July 2025. New accounts now choose between a Free Plan and a Paid Plan, both with up to $200 in credits. The old 12-month free allowances for EC2, RDS, and S3 only apply to accounts created before that date. This page explains every part of the current model so you can learn AWS without surprise charges.
Simple explanation
AWS Free Tier is not one thing. It is a combination of credits, permanently free service allowances, and short-term trials. Understanding the difference matters because running out of credits and exceeding a free allowance lead to very different outcomes.
Think of it like a restaurant with three kinds of food on the table:
- Credits are like a prepaid gift card. AWS hands new accounts up to $200, and every service you use draws down that balance. When the balance hits zero, you either start paying (Paid Plan) or your account closes (Free Plan).
- Always Free allowances are like the free bread basket that refills every month. Services like Lambda and DynamoDB include a monthly free tier that resets and never expires, regardless of your account age or credit balance.
- Short-term trials are like a free sample at the counter. You try the service once, the clock starts, and after the trial window closes you pay full price.
When you create an AWS account, knowing which category covers each service you plan to use prevents the most common billing surprises.
How AWS Free Tier works in 2026
Free Plan
The Free Plan is designed for learning and experimentation. When you create a new account and select the Free Plan, you receive $100 in credits immediately and can earn up to $100 more by completing onboarding activities (five activities at $20 each). Your account remains active for six months or until your credits run out, whichever comes first.
The Free Plan restricts access to services that can rapidly consume credits, including hardware purchases, AWS Marketplace, Reserved Instances, and Savings Plans. If your credits run out or the six months expire, your account auto-closes. You get a 90-day grace period to retrieve your data before AWS permanently deletes it.
You cannot downgrade from Paid Plan to Free Plan. Certain actions like joining an AWS Organization or setting up AWS Control Tower will automatically upgrade you to the Paid Plan with no way back.
Paid Plan
The Paid Plan gives you full access to every AWS service with no restrictions. You still receive the same $100 in initial credits and can earn up to $100 more through the same onboarding activities. The key difference: once credits are exhausted, standard pay-as-you-go pricing applies and your account stays open. Short-term trials are only available on the Paid Plan.
AWS credits (up to $200)
Both plans start with $100 in credits applied automatically at signup. You can earn up to $100 more by completing five onboarding activities worth $20 each:
- Launch and terminate an EC2 instance
- Launch an RDS database
- Create a Lambda function with a Function URL
- Submit a text prompt in the Amazon Bedrock playground
- Set up a cost budget with alerts in AWS Budgets
Credits appear within about 10 minutes after completing each activity. All activities must be completed within six months of account creation. Credits expire 12 months after account creation.
Credits expire immediately if you join an AWS Organization. This is a common trap for learners who set up multi-account structures as part of a tutorial. Your entire credit balance vanishes the moment you join.
Always Free services
Over 30 AWS services include a permanent free monthly allowance that never expires. These limits reset every month and apply to all accounts, new and old. Think of them as the baseline utilities included with every AWS account. Some of the most useful for learners:
- Lambda: 1 million requests and 400,000 GB-seconds of compute per month
- DynamoDB: 25 GB storage, 25 read/write capacity units, 200 million requests per month
- S3: 5 GB standard storage, 20,000 GET requests, 2,000 PUT requests per month
- CloudWatch: 10 custom metrics, 10 alarms, 1 million API requests per month
- SNS: 1 million publishes per month
- SQS: 1 million requests per month
- CloudFront: 1 TB data transfer out and 10 million requests per month
- API Gateway: 1 million REST API calls per month
AWS updates these limits periodically. Always check the official AWS Free Tier page for the current list and exact quotas before planning a project around free usage assumptions.
Short-term trials
Some services offer a time-limited trial that starts when you first use that service, not when you create your account. These are only available on the Paid Plan. Examples include Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Redshift Serverless, Amazon Lightsail, and Amazon GuardDuty. Trial durations range from 15 days to three months depending on the service.
Legacy 12-month offers (older accounts only)
If your account was created before July 15, 2025, you may still have access to the original 12-month free allowances. These included 750 hours/month of EC2 t2.micro or t3.micro, 750 hours/month of RDS db.t3.micro, 30 GB of EBS storage, and more. These allowances expired 12 months after account creation.
New accounts created after July 15, 2025 do not receive these 12-month offers. The credit system replaces them.
If you are following a tutorial or course that says you get “750 free EC2 hours per month,” that applies to legacy accounts only. On newer accounts, those hours draw from your credit balance instead.
At-a-glance comparison
| Option | Who gets it | How long it lasts | What happens at the limit | Biggest gotcha |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | New accounts (post-July 2025) | 6 months or until credits run out | Account auto-closes; 90-day data grace period | Some services are blocked; no short-term trials |
| Paid Plan | New accounts (post-July 2025) | Ongoing | Standard pay-as-you-go pricing kicks in | Easy to forget credits are gone and start paying |
| AWS Credits ($200) | All new accounts (both plans) | 12 months from account creation | Remaining balance disappears; usage bills normally | Joining an Organization expires credits immediately |
| Always Free | All AWS accounts | No expiry | Standard rates apply above the free limit | Limits are per-month, not cumulative |
| Short-term trials | Paid Plan only | 15 days to 3 months (varies) | Standard rates apply after trial ends | Clock starts on first use, not account creation |
| Legacy 12-month offers | Accounts created before July 15, 2025 | 12 months from account creation | Standard rates apply; resources keep running | No warning before expiration; resources bill silently |
When to use this
The Free Tier is well suited for specific scenarios. It is not a general-purpose hosting solution.
- Learning AWS basics. Spin up an EC2 instance, upload files to S3, invoke a Lambda function. Credits cover the cost and Always Free limits handle small experiments indefinitely.
- Testing S3, Lambda, or small labs. Most hands-on tutorials fit comfortably within Always Free limits or consume only a small amount of credits.
- Building a tiny proof of concept. Validating an idea with a single instance and a small database is realistic within the credit allowance, especially if you clean up resources when you are done.
Do not rely on Free Tier for production workloads or unpredictable traffic. If your workload might scale, could receive real user traffic, or needs to stay running past your credit window, use the Paid Plan and estimate your costs upfront. Free Tier limits do not scale with demand, and an unexpected traffic spike will burn through credits or generate a real bill fast.
Common charges that surprise beginners
Think of AWS Free Tier like a hotel room that is free to sleep in but charges extra for room service, minibar, and parking. The room itself costs nothing, but the extras add up fast if you are not paying attention. These are the “extras” that catch the most beginners off guard.
NAT Gateway
NAT Gateways have no free tier at all. They cost roughly $0.045 per hour plus data processing charges. A single NAT Gateway running all month costs around $33 before data fees. If a tutorial puts your EC2 instance in a private subnet, it probably creates a NAT Gateway. Delete it when you are done.
Elastic IP addresses
An Elastic IP attached to a running instance is free. An Elastic IP that is allocated but not attached (or attached to a stopped instance) costs roughly $3.60 per month. Learners often allocate one, stop their instance, and forget about it.
Data transfer out (egress)
The first 100 GB of outbound data transfer per month is free across all services. Beyond that, standard egress pricing applies. Large S3 downloads, public APIs with real traffic, or streaming data can push past this quickly.
Wrong EC2 or database instance size
Credits cover any instance type, but they drain much faster if you launch a large instance by mistake. Legacy 12-month accounts only got free t2.micro or t3.micro instances. Either way, double-check the instance size before confirming a launch.
Orphaned resources
Terminating an EC2 instance does not always clean up everything attached to it. EBS volumes, snapshots, Elastic IPs, and load balancers can all persist and continue billing. After any lab or tutorial, check your account for leftover resources and delete what you no longer need.
A stopped EC2 instance still costs money. The compute charges stop, but the attached EBS volume keeps billing. It is like turning off the engine but leaving the car in a paid parking lot. If you are done, terminate the instance entirely.
How to track usage and avoid surprise bills
Avoiding surprise charges is less about CLI commands and more about building the right habits in the first 10 minutes after creating your account. Think of it like putting on a seatbelt: it takes seconds, and you only appreciate it when something goes wrong.
Set a starter budget immediately. Go to the AWS Budgets console and create a monthly cost budget of $1 or $5. Add your email as the alert recipient. This takes two minutes and catches accidental charges before they grow. Completing this step also earns you $20 in bonus credits.
Enable Free Tier usage alerts. In the Billing console, enable the Free Tier usage alert. AWS sends an email when you approach or exceed a free-tier limit.
Check the Bills page regularly. The Bills page in the Billing console shows estimated charges broken down by service. Check it after every lab session, not just at the end of the month.
Use Cost Explorer for trends. Cost Explorer shows your spending over time, broken down by service. It helps you spot a slow cost increase before it becomes a problem.
Do not assume something is still free. Always Free limits are fixed per month. Credits deplete. Trials expire. Before starting a new tutorial, check the Billing console to see your current credit balance and usage.
The $1 budget alert is the single most valuable thing you can do to protect yourself. Set it before you launch your first resource, not after. On the Free Plan, this also counts as one of the five onboarding activities that earns you $20 in additional credits.
Common beginner mistakes
Assuming everything is free for 12 months. The 12-month model is legacy. New accounts get credits instead. Credits cover usage across services, but they run out faster than most people expect if you leave resources running. It is like leaving all the lights on in a house and being surprised when the electricity bill arrives.
Leaving resources running after a tutorial. A single EC2 instance and RDS database running 24/7 can consume credits in weeks rather than months. Terminate or stop resources you are not actively using, and check for orphaned volumes and snapshots.
Ignoring the NAT Gateway. Many VPC tutorials create a NAT Gateway. It has no free tier and charges by the hour. Delete it when the tutorial is done.
Not setting a budget alert. AWS does not proactively warn you when you exceed free limits or burn through credits. Without a budget alert, the first time you learn about a charge is on your credit card statement.
Stopping an instance instead of terminating it. A stopped EC2 instance no longer charges for compute, but the attached EBS volume keeps billing. If you are done with the instance, terminate it. If you want to keep it for later, understand that storage charges continue.
Following outdated tutorials. Many AWS tutorials and courses still reference the old 12-month model. If a guide says you get “750 free EC2 hours per month,” check whether your account was created before or after July 15, 2025. On newer accounts, those hours draw from your credit balance instead.
Free Plan vs Paid Plan: which to choose
Both plans give you the same credits and Always Free services. The decision comes down to what happens when the credits run out and what services you need access to.
Think of the Free Plan like a prepaid phone: when the balance runs out, the service stops. The Paid Plan is like a postpaid contract: the service keeps running and you get the bill later. Both start with the same balance. The question is what you want to happen at zero.
| Factor | Free Plan | Paid Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Initial credits | $100 (+ up to $100 earned) | $100 (+ up to $100 earned) |
| Account duration | 6 months or until credits run out | No limit |
| Service access | Restricted (no Marketplace, no Reserved Instances) | Full access to all services |
| Short-term trials | Not available | Available |
| After credits run out | Account auto-closes | Pay-as-you-go billing starts |
| Best for | Short-term learning with a hard spending cap | Ongoing learning, building projects, eventual production |
If you want a strict safety net where you cannot accidentally overspend, the Free Plan works well for short learning sprints. If you plan to keep using AWS beyond six months or need access to services the Free Plan restricts, start on the Paid Plan and set a tight budget alert instead.
Summary
- New AWS accounts (post-July 2025) choose between Free Plan (auto-closes after 6 months) and Paid Plan (ongoing, pay-as-you-go)
- Both plans receive $100 in credits at signup plus up to $100 earned through onboarding activities
- Always Free services (Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, SQS, and others) have permanent monthly limits that never expire
- The old 12-month free EC2/RDS/S3 allowances are legacy and only apply to accounts created before July 15, 2025
- NAT Gateways, unattached Elastic IPs, and orphaned EBS resources are the most common surprise charges
- Set a $1 budget alert before launching your first resource
Frequently asked questions
Is the AWS Free Tier actually free?
It depends on what you use and which plan you choose. Always Free services like Lambda and DynamoDB stay free within their monthly limits forever. For new accounts created after July 2025, AWS provides up to $200 in credits that cover usage of paid services. Once credits run out or expire, you pay standard rates on the Paid Plan, or your account closes on the Free Plan. A credit card is required at signup regardless of plan.
Do I need a credit card to use the AWS Free Tier?
Yes. AWS requires a valid payment method when you create an account, even on the Free Plan. On the Free Plan, AWS verifies your identity but does not charge you beyond your credits. On the Paid Plan, standard rates apply once credits are used up.
What happens when my credits or free usage run out?
On the Free Plan, your account auto-closes when credits are exhausted or after six months, whichever comes first. You get a 90-day grace period to download your data before it is permanently deleted. On the Paid Plan, standard pay-as-you-go pricing kicks in automatically once credits are used up.
Can I still get 12 months of free EC2, RDS, and S3?
Only if your account was created before July 15, 2025. Those legacy 12-month offers are no longer available to new accounts. New accounts receive up to $200 in credits instead, which can be spent on any eligible service including EC2, RDS, and S3.
Which AWS costs are most likely to surprise beginners?
NAT Gateways (around $33/month just for being on), unattached Elastic IP addresses, data transfer out charges, accidentally choosing an EC2 instance size larger than intended, and orphaned resources like EBS volumes or snapshots that keep billing after you delete the instance they were attached to.