AWS Free Tier in 2026 Explained: What's Free, What Isn't, and How to Avoid a Surprise Bill

AWS overhauled its Free Tier for accounts created on or after 15 July 2025. The old model gave new accounts 12 months of free usage on selected services (like 750 hours a month of a small EC2 instance). The new model replaces that with credits.

Accounts created before 15 July 2025 stay on the legacy programme until their 12-month offers expire. Credits are not offered in the AWS GovCloud (US) or China regions.

Free plan vs Paid plan: which should you pick?

According to AWS's Free Tier page:

Free plan

• Includes select services only.
• You are not charged unless you upgrade to a Paid plan or activate paid-only services.
• Credits cannot be used to scale beyond the credit amount.
• The account closes on its own six months after you open it, or when credits run out, whichever comes first. You can upgrade before then to keep it.

Paid plan

• Access to all AWS services, billed pay-as-you-go.
• New Paid-plan customers are also eligible for up to $200 in credits.
• Usage beyond your credits is billed to your card.
• Eligible for promotional credits (for example from events or startup programmes).

Editor's tip: If you are a student or learning AWS for the first time, start on the Free plan. It is the only setup where AWS states you will not be charged unless you upgrade. Move to a Paid plan only when you need a service the Free plan excludes or a project must stay online beyond six months.

How do I earn the extra $100 in credits?

AWS gives credit for completing onboarding activities with core services. Third-party coverage describes five activities worth $20 each:

1. Launch an Amazon EC2 instance.
2. Set up an Amazon RDS database.
3. Build an AWS Lambda function.
4. Use Amazon Bedrock (for example, try a model in the playground).
5. Set up a budget in AWS Budgets.

AWS's own page confirms the "up to $100 more" by exploring key services; check the Explore AWS widget in your console for the current list. Unused credits are reported to remain valid for 12 months on eligible services, but on the Free plan the account itself closes after six months unless upgraded.

What is always free on AWS?

AWS says more than 30 services are always free within monthly limits on both plans. These limits do not expire. Commonly cited examples include:

AWS may change these allowances. Always confirm the current limit for a specific service on aws.amazon.com/free before relying on it.

What isn't free on AWS? (the things that cause surprise bills)

Even with credits, these are the classic sources of unexpected charges, especially on a Paid plan:

• NAT Gateways: billed per hour and per GB, even with little traffic.
• Elastic IP addresses and public IPv4 addresses: AWS charges for public IPv4 addresses.
• EBS volumes and snapshots left behind after you terminate an EC2 instance.
• Load balancers left running after a test.
• Data transfer out to the internet beyond free allowances.
• Resources in a region you forgot about: the console shows one region at a time.
• Managed services with hourly pricing such as RDS, OpenSearch, EKS control planes or SageMaker endpoints.
• Generative AI usage on Amazon Bedrock beyond your credits, since large prompts and outputs add up.

How to avoid a surprise AWS bill: a checklist

1. Choose the Free plan when you sign up, unless you have a reason not to.
2. Secure the account: enable MFA on the root user and use an IAM Identity Center or IAM user for daily work.
3. Create a budget in AWS Budgets with email alerts at, for example, 50%, 80% and 100% of a small amount. (On new accounts this also earns credit.)
4. Turn on Free Tier usage alerts in Billing preferences.
5. Check the Billing and Cost Management dashboard weekly, including the credits balance.
6. Tag resources with a project name so you can find and delete them later.
7. Tear down after every lab: delete instances, volumes, snapshots, load balancers, NAT gateways and Elastic IPs.
8. Check all regions using Cost Explorer grouped by region or the Tag Editor's resource search.

For the technically curious: check usage and set a budget from the CLI

You can check Free Tier usage programmatically with the Free Tier API, and create a budget with the AWS CLI. Replace the account ID and email with your own.

# See how much of your Free Tier allowances you have used
aws freetier get-free-tier-usage --region us-east-1

# Create a $5 monthly cost budget with an email alert at 80%
cat > budget.json <<'EOF'
{
  "BudgetName": "monthly-5-usd",
  "BudgetLimit": { "Amount": "5", "Unit": "USD" },
  "TimeUnit": "MONTHLY",
  "BudgetType": "COST"
}
EOF

cat > notify.json <<'EOF'
[{
  "Notification": {
    "NotificationType": "ACTUAL",
    "ComparisonOperator": "GREATER_THAN",
    "Threshold": 80,
    "ThresholdType": "PERCENTAGE"
  },
  "Subscribers": [{ "SubscriptionType": "EMAIL", "Address": "you@example.com" }]
}]
EOF

aws budgets create-budget \
  --account-id 111122223333 \
  --budget file://budget.json \
  --notifications-with-subscribers file://notify.json

A few details worth knowing:

• Budgets alerts are not real-time; billing data can lag by several hours. A budget warns you, it does not stop spending.
• For a hard stop on a Paid plan you need automation, such as a budget action that applies a restrictive IAM policy, or a Lambda function triggered by an alert.
• Credits are applied to eligible charges automatically. You can see them in the Credits section of the Billing console.

Who should still be careful?

• Students and learners in India: payment cards are verified at sign-up. Using the Free plan avoids charges, but a Paid plan will bill your card in US dollars, and your bank may add foreign transaction charges.
• Startup founders: the up-to-$200 Free Tier credits are separate from larger startup credit programmes such as AWS Activate.
• Anyone using old tutorials: guides written before July 2025 often say "t2.micro is free for 12 months". On new accounts, EC2 usage draws down your credits instead.

Free Tier for students and learners: a sensible plan

If you are learning AWS for a certification or a college project, this approach keeps costs near zero:

1. Sign up on the Free plan with MFA enabled on the root user.
2. Do the onboarding activities early to unlock the extra credits, then delete what you created.
3. Prefer serverless services like Lambda, DynamoDB and S3 for small projects, since they charge only for use and some have always-free allowances.
4. Use one region for all your labs so you never lose track of resources.
5. Write a teardown checklist for each lab and follow it every time.
6. Export anything you want to keep (code, notes, diagrams) before the six-month Free plan ends, because the account closes unless you upgrade.

Legacy accounts: what if I signed up before July 2025?

Your account keeps the old Free Tier rules until the 12-month offers expire, 12 months after the account was created. After that, usage of those services is billed at standard rates, while always-free allowances continue. Legacy accounts do not automatically get the new sign-up credits. Many surprise bills on older accounts come from this 12-month cliff, when an EC2 instance or RDS database left running quietly moves from free to paid.

Free plan vs AWS Activate and other credit programmes

The Free Tier credits are designed for individual exploration. Startups can apply separately to AWS Activate for larger credit amounts, and students may get access to learning resources through AWS Educate or AWS Skill Builder. These programmes have their own terms, so read them directly on AWS's site.

FAQ

Is AWS still free for 12 months?

Not for new accounts. Accounts created on or after 15 July 2025 get up to $200 in credits and a Free plan that lasts up to six months. The 12-month offers continue only for older accounts until they expire.

Will AWS charge me after the free plan ends?

AWS says you will not be charged on the Free plan unless you upgrade to a Paid plan. If you don't upgrade, the account closes after six months or when credits run out.

How do I get the full $200 AWS credit?

You receive $100 at sign-up and can earn up to $100 more by completing onboarding activities with services like EC2, RDS, Lambda, Bedrock and AWS Budgets.

Is EC2 free in the new AWS Free Tier?

EC2 usage on new accounts is paid for from your credits rather than from a separate 750-hour allowance.

What services are always free?

More than 30, including AWS Lambda and Amazon DynamoDB within monthly limits. Check aws.amazon.com/free for current allowances.

Can I use Amazon Bedrock on the Free Tier?

Bedrock usage can be paid for with your credits, and trying Bedrock is one of the onboarding activities. Check which models are available on the Free plan in your console.

How do I stop all charges on AWS?

Delete all resources in every region, then close the account from the Account page if you no longer need it. On a Free plan you are not charged unless you upgrade.

Sources

• https://aws.amazon.com/free/
• https://www.neowin.net/news/aws-free-tier-overhauled-new-users-get-200-in-credits-but-theres-a-catch/
• https://www.techzine.eu/news/applications/133095/aws-renews-free-tier-with-credit-up-to-200/
• https://spot.rackspace.com/blog/aws-free-tier

Featured image: Amazon. Source