When you’re new to Amazon Web Services (AWS), you can get started with AWS Free Tier to learn about AWS services, gain hands-on experience, and build applications. You can explore the portfolio of services without incurring costs, making it even easier to get started with AWS.
Today, we’re announcing some enhancements to the AWS Free Tier program, offering up to $200 in AWS credits that can be used across AWS services. You’ll receive $100 in AWS credits upon sign-up and can earn an additional $100 in credits by using services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), AWS Lambda, Amazon Bedrock, and AWS Budgets.
The enhanced AWS Free Tier program offers two options during sign-up: a free account plan and a paid account plan. The free account plan ensures you won’t incur any charges until you upgrade to a paid plan. The free account plan expires after 6 months or when you exhaust your credits, whichever comes first.
While on the free account plan, you won’t be able to use some services typically used by large enterprises. You can upgrade to a paid plan at any time to continue building on AWS. When you upgrade, you can still use any unused credits for any eligible service usage for up to 12 months from your initial sign-up date.
When you choose the paid plan, AWS will automatically apply your Free Tier credits to the use of eligible services in your AWS bills. For usage that exceeds the credits, you’re charged with the on-demand pricing.
Get up to $200 credits in action
When you sign up for either a free plan or a paid plan, you’ll receive $100 credit. You can also earn an additional $20 credits for each of these five AWS service activities you complete:
- Amazon EC2 – You’ll learn how to launch an EC2 instance and terminate it.
- Amazon RDS – You’ll learn the basic configuration options for launching an RDS database.
- AWS Lambda – You’ll learn to build a straightforward web application consisting of a Lambda function with a function URL.
- Amazon Bedrock – You’ll learn how to submit a prompt to generate a response in the Amazon Bedrock text playground.
- AWS Budgets – You’ll learn how to set a budget that alerts you when you exceed your budgeted cost amount.
You can see the credit details in the Explore AWS widget in the AWS Management Console.
These activities are designed to expose customers to important building blocks of AWS, including cost and usage that show up in the AWS Billing Console. These charges are deducted from your Free Tier credits and help teach new AWS users about selecting the appropriate instance sizes to minimize your costs.
Choose Set up a cost budget using AWS Budgets to earn your first $20 credits. It redirects to the AWS Billing and Cost Management console.
To create your first budget, choose Use a template (simplified) and Monthly cost budget to notify you if you exceed, or are forecasted to exceed, the budget amount.
When you choose the Customize (advanced) setup option, you can customize a budget to set parameters specific to your use case, scope of AWS services or AWS Regions, the time period, the start month, and specific accounts.
After you successfully create your budget, your begin receiving alerts when your spend exceeds your budgeted amount.
You can go to the Credits page in the left navigation pane in the AWS Billing and Cost Management Console to confirm your $20 in credits. Please note, it can take up to 10 minutes for your credits to appear.
You can receive an additional $80 by completing the remaining four activities. Now you can use up to $200 in credits to learn AWS services and build your first application.
Things to know
Here are some of things to know about the enhanced AWS Free Tier program:
- Notifications – We’ll send an email alert when 50 percent, 25 percent, or 10 percent of your AWS credits remain. We’ll also send notifications to the AWS console and your email inbox when you have 15 days, 7 days, and 2 days left in your 6-month free period. After your free period ends, we’ll send you an email with instructions on how to upgrade to a paid plan. You’ll have 90 days to reopen your account by upgrading to a paid plan.
- AWS services – The free account can access parts of AWS services including over 30 services that offer always-free tier. The paid account can access all AWS services. For more information, visit AWS Free Tier page.
- Legacy Free Tier – If your AWS account was created before July 15, 2025, you’ll continue to be in the legacy Free Tier program, where you can access short-term trials, 12-month trials, and always free tier services. The always-free tier is available under both the new Free Tier program and the legacy Free Tier program.
Now available
The new AWS Free Tier features are generally available in all AWS Regions, except the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions and the China Regions. To learn more, visit the AWS Free Tier page and AWS Free Tier Documentation.
Give the new AWS Free Tier a try by signing up today, and send feedback to AWS re:Post for AWS Free Tier or through your usual AWS Support contacts.
— Channy