How to Cancel AWS in 2026 (Close Your Account Without Surprise Bills)

AWS is infamous for surprise bills — forgotten EC2 instances, EBS volumes, and Elastic IPs that charge even when "stopped." Here's how to completely shut everything down and close your account.

Step 1: Find ALL Running Resources

AWS has 200+ services across 30+ regions. Resources you forgot about are probably still billing:

1. Go to AWS Cost Explorer (console → Billing → Cost Explorer)
2. Review the last 3 months of charges by service
3. Check every region — resources only show in the region they were created in
4. Use AWS Resource Explorer or Tag Editor to find resources across regions
5. Common surprise charges: EBS volumes ($0.10/GB/month), Elastic IPs ($3.65/month if unattached), NAT Gateways ($32/month), RDS instances, S3 buckets

Step 2: Export Your Data

• S3: aws s3 sync s3://your-bucket ./local-backup
• RDS: Create a final snapshot, then export to S3 or use pg_dump / mysqldump
• DynamoDB: Use Data Pipeline or aws dynamodb scan to export tables
• EC2: Create AMIs of any instances you want to preserve
• Lambda functions: Download function code from the console
• CloudWatch Logs: Export log groups to S3 before closing
• Route 53: Export DNS zone files for any hosted zones

Step 3: Delete Everything (Region by Region)

Go through EACH region and delete:

1. EC2: Terminate all instances, delete EBS volumes, release Elastic IPs, delete security groups, delete key pairs
2. RDS: Delete all database instances (skip final snapshot if you already exported)
3. S3: Empty all buckets, then delete them
4. Lambda: Delete all functions
5. NAT Gateways: Delete (these cost $32/month each!)
6. Load Balancers: Delete all ALBs/NLBs ($16-30/month each)
7. VPCs: Delete custom VPCs (default VPC is free)
8. Route 53: Delete hosted zones ($0.50/month each)
9. CloudWatch Alarms: Delete all alarms
10. IAM: Delete all users, roles, and access keys

Step 4: Close Your AWS Account

1. Sign in as the root user (the email that created the account)
2. Go to Account Settings (top-right → Account)
3. Scroll to Close Account
4. Check all the confirmation boxes
5. Click Close Account
6. Important: AWS keeps the account in "suspended" state for 90 days. You can reactivate during this period. After 90 days, it's permanently closed.

After Closing: What Still Bills?

• S3 storage: Data in S3 continues to incur storage charges during the 90-day suspension period unless you empty/delete buckets first
• Domain registrations (Route 53): Domain registrations are non-refundable and don't auto-cancel
• Marketplace subscriptions: Third-party SaaS via AWS Marketplace may continue billing
• Reserved Instances: You're committed for the full term regardless of account closure
• Savings Plans: Same as Reserved Instances — commitment doesn't cancel

Disputing Unexpected AWS Charges

• Compromised credentials: If someone used your access keys, AWS Support will often waive charges. Open a billing support case immediately.
• Free tier overages: AWS has waived first-time free tier overage charges for many users. Contact billing support.
• Credit card dispute: As a last resort, dispute through your bank. Note: AWS may suspend your account and send to collections.

Simpler Alternatives

• Vercel/Netlify (free): For web apps. No server management, predictable pricing.
• Railway ($5/mo credit): For backend services. Heroku-like simplicity.
• Hetzner ($4-5/mo): For VPS. 10x cheaper than comparable EC2. European data centers.
• DigitalOcean ($4-6/mo): Simpler than AWS, predictable pricing, good docs.
• Cloudflare (free-$5/mo): Pages + Workers + R2 storage. No bandwidth charges. Ever.