I closed my personal AWS learning account on July 13 after trying to terminate all resources in every region. On August 1, I received a monthly invoice showing a $0.00 balance. I then received an automated notice that my Free Tier access and remaining $105 in promotional credits will expire on August 24. Since I can no longer log in, I want to confirm what this means during the 90-day post-closure period. Does account closure stop pay-as-you-go billing, including charges from a resource I might have accidentally missed, such as an EBS volume or Elastic IP? Could the promotional credits expiring lead to a credit-card charge? And is the $0.00 invoice evidence that there was no outstanding or accumulating balance?
3 Answers
It sounds like you’re fine. Account closure should prevent new usage-based resources from continuing to run, while any fees from before closure would still need to be settled. A zero-dollar invoice shortly afterward strongly suggests there was nothing to collect. For complete confirmation, contact the provider’s account and billing support through the closed-account support process, especially if you had any reservations or other billing commitments.
You’re generally responsible for any charges incurred before the account was closed, but the $0.00 invoice is a good sign that there was no balance at that point. The Free Tier and credit-expiration email is likely an automatic notification and doesn’t by itself mean a charge is coming. The main exception would be a commitment such as a Reserved Instance or Savings Plan, which can continue billing after closure; those charges would normally appear on an invoice.
The 90-day period is mainly for final account processing and limited access to support; it isn’t a new period in which Free Tier credits can turn into charges. Promotional credits expiring simply means they can no longer offset eligible usage. If there was no eligible usage and no continuing contract-based commitment, expiration of the credits should not create a charge by itself.
Thanks, that clears up the difference between the automatic credit notice and an actual invoice.