Most tutorials online still promise a free t2.micro for twelve months. That offer ended for accounts opened from 15 July 2025. New accounts get USD 100 in credits on signup and up to USD 100 more for trying services such as EC2 24 and Amazon Bedrock 24 : at most USD 200, valid for six months. At signup you choose one of two plans:
The Free plan can never bill you. It ends after six months or when the credits run out, whichever comes first, and then the account closes itself. AWS 24 keeps your data for 90 days in case you upgrade, then deletes it. Savings Plans, Reserved Instances and some Marketplace offers are withheld.
The Paid plan spends the same credits first, then bills normal rates, and never closes.
| Accounts before 15 July 2025 | Accounts from 15 July 2025 | |
|---|---|---|
| Free offer | 750 hours a month of t2.micro or t3.micro | USD 100 credit, up to USD 200 |
| Duration | 12 months | 6 months, or until credits run out |
| Eligible types | t2.micro, t3.micro | t3, t4g and t8i micro and small; c7i-flex.large; m7i-flex.large |
| At the end | Normal billing starts | Free plan closes; Paid plan bills |
The eligible types are what aws ec2 describe-instance-types --filters Name=free-tier-eligible,Values=true returned on 23 September 2026. Both plans keep the 30-plus always-free services, whose monthly limits never expire, such as Lambda's one million requests a month; aws.amazon.com/free (https://aws.amazon.com/free/ 24 ) lists them all.
A server you mean to keep needs the Paid plan. Credits are money: the t4g.micro in Amazon EC2 costs USD 0.0084 an hour, while a forgotten m7i.8xlarge at USD 1.6128 an hour spends USD 200 in about five days. AWS Costs covers pricing and its traps.