Closing an account - Amazon Billing
Considerations before you close your Amazon Web Services accountTroubleshooting errors when closing an Amazon Web Services accountClosing your Amazon Web Services accountAccessing your Amazon Web Services account after closureAfter the post-closure period
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Closing an account

This page highlights some key concepts for those considering closing your Amazon Web Services account. If you have any questions throughout the process, you can contact your account representative or contact Amazon Web Services Support for assistance. For more information about contacting Amazon Web Services Support, see Contacting Amazon Web Services Support.

For details about closing your Amazon Organizations accounts, see Closing an Amazon Web Services account in the Amazon Organizations User Guide.

Considerations before you close your Amazon Web Services account

Before closing your Amazon Web Services account, consider the following:

Your agreement with governing your use of Amazon Web Services

Your closure of your Amazon Web Services account serves as a notice to us that you want to terminate the Amazon Web Service customer agreement or other agreements that governs your Amazon Web Services account, solely with respect to the specific Amazon Web Services account. If you reopen your Amazon Web Services account during the post-closure period (that is, within 90 days after your account is closed), you agree that the same agreement terms will govern your access to and use of the service offerings through your reopened Amazon Web Services account.

If you close the account that you're using for the Amazon Firewall Manager administrator, Amazon Web Services and Firewall Manager handle the closure as follows:

Amazon Web Services revokes the account's administrative access from the service and deactivates any policies that were managed by the administrator account. The protections that were provided by these policies are stopped across the organization.

  • Before closing your account, back up and then delete your policy data and other account resources. You will no longer have access to them after you close the account.

    • The account resources are subject to the policies of Amazon Web Services operating partners: Sinnet in the China (Beijing) Region and NWCD in the China (Ningxia) Region. Account closure procedures in China might take longer than in other Amazon Web Services Regions.

Amazon Web Services management console access

Your access to the Amazon Web Services Management Console for the closed Amazon Web Services account is restricted. During the post-closure period, you can still sign in to your Amazon Web Services account to view your past billing information and access Amazon Web Services Support. You can't access any other Amazon Web Services or start any new Amazon Web Services in the closed account.

Existing content and services still in use

Before you close your Amazon Web Services account, we recommend that you retrieve the content that you want to keep and delete the remaining resources. For instructions on how to retrieve data and delete resources, see the documentation for that service.

After the post-closure period, any remaining content in your Amazon Web Services account is deleted, and services that are still in use are terminated. For more information about the post-closure period, see Accessing your Amazon Web Services account after closure.

Your payment method

We charge you through your designated payment method for any usage fees incurred before you closed your Amazon Web Services account. We might issue you any refunds that are due through that same payment method. If you have active subscriptions, even after your account is closed, you might continue to be charged for the subscription until the subscription expires or is sold according to the terms governing the subscription. If you're charged, you're charged through your designated payment method. This situation might apply to you if, for example, you have a Reserved Instance that you pay for on a monthly basis. These charges and refunds might occur after you close your account.

In addition, if you reopen your account, you might be charged for the cost of running Amazon Web Service services during the post-closure period. This is specifically for any services that you didn't terminate before closing your account.

Accounts protected by MFA

If you choose to leave the MFA turned on during the 90 days post-closure period, keep the virtual hardware MFA device active until the post-closure period expired in case you need to access the account during that time.

You have the option to turn off the MFA device before closing the account. MFA devices for IAM users must be deleted by the account administrator.

On-Demand charges

During the post-closure period, billing for On-Demand charges stops. However, you're billed for any usage that has accrued up until the time you closed your account. You'll be charged for that usage at the beginning of the next month. In addition, if you purchased any subscriptions with ongoing payment obligations, you might continue to be charged for them after your account is closed.

Important

If you don't terminate your resources, you will continue to generate costs.

Charges if you reopen your Amazon Web Services account

If you reopen your Amazon Web Services account during the post-closure period, you might be billed for the cost of any Amazon Web Services that aren't terminated before you closed your account.

Example

You reopen your Amazon Web Services account 30 days after closure, and your Amazon Web Services account had only an active t-example.example Amazon EC2 instance at closure. The price for a t-example.example Amazon EC2 instance in your Amazon Web Services Region is $0.01 each hour. In this case, you might be charged for 30 days x 24 hours x $0.01 per hour = $7.20 for your Amazon Web Services.

Closing a member account

When you close an account that was created with Amazon Organizations, that account isn't removed from the organization until after the post-closure period. During the post-closure period, a closed member account still counts toward your quota of accounts in the organization.

To avoid having the account count against the limit, remove member accounts from the organization before closing it. For more information, see Closing an Amazon Web Services account in the Amazon Organizations User Guide.

Cross-account access to the account you’re closing

After you close your Amazon Web Services account, any access requests to your closed account's Amazon Web Service services from other Amazon Web Services accounts fail. This occurs even if you have granted the other accounts permission to access your account's Amazon Web Services. If you reopen your Amazon Web Services account, other Amazon Web Services accounts can access your account's Amazon Web Services if you have granted the other accounts the necessary permissions.

Removing Amazon VPC peering connection

Amazon Web Services currently doesn't delete Amazon VPC peering connections when you close one of the accounts participating in the VPC peering connection. Any traffic that's destined for the VPC peering connection and originates from other active accounts is dropped. This is because Amazon Web Services terminates instances and deletes any security groups in the closed account. To remove the VPC peering connection, you can delete it from your account using the Amazon VPC console, Amazon CLI, or Amazon EC2 API.

Troubleshooting errors when closing an Amazon Web Services account

If you receive an error message while trying to close your Amazon Web Services account, you can contact your account representative or contact us to open a billing or account support case. Common reasons why you can't close your Amazon Web Services account include the following situations:

  • Your account is the management account of an organization in Amazon Organizations with open member accounts.

  • You have unpaid invoices for your account.

  • You are an active Amazon Web Services Marketplace seller.

Closing your Amazon Web Services account

You can close your Amazon Web Services account using the following procedure.

To close your Amazon Web Services account

  1. Open the Billing and Cost Management console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/billing/home#/.

  2. On the navigation bar in the upper-right corner, choose your account name (or alias), and choose Account.

  3. Scroll to the end of the page to the Close Account section. Read and ensure that you understand the text next to the check box. After you close an Amazon Web Services account, you can no longer use it to access Amazon Web Services.

    If the account has a multi-factor authentication (MFA) device turned on, keep your MFA device until the 90 day post-closure period expires, or turn off before closing the account.

  4. Select the check box to accept the terms, and choose Close Account.

  5. In the confirmation box, choose Close Account.

Accessing your Amazon Web Services account after closure

After you close an Amazon Web Services account following the process described in the preceding steps, you can no longer use it to access Amazon Web Services. However, during the Post-Closure Period, which are the 90 days after your account is closed, you can still view your Amazon Web Services account's past billing information and access Amazon Web Services Support. Your Amazon EC2 instances can be stopped after your account has been closed. If you reopen your account, you might need to restart your Amazon EC2 instances.

During the Post-Closure Period, Amazon Web Services might retain any content that you didn't delete and any Amazon Web Services that you didn't terminate before you closed your Amazon Web Services account. You can access any remaining content or Amazon Web Services only by reopening your account during the Post-Closure Period. You can reopen your Amazon Web Services account by contacting Amazon Web Services Support. If you choose to reopen your account, you can access the content that you didn't delete and Amazon Web Services that you didn't terminate before closing your account. However, you might be charged for the cost of running those Amazon Web Services during the Post-Closure Period. You can estimate the cost of running Amazon Web Services using the Amazon Pricing Calculator in the Amazon Pricing Calculator User Guide.

After the post-closure period

After the Post-Closure Period, we permanently close your Amazon Web Services account, and you can't reopen it. Any content that you didn't delete is deleted, and any Amazon Web Services that you didn't terminate are terminated. Service attributes can be retained as long as needed for billing and administration purposes. You also can't create a new Amazon Web Services account using the same alias or email address that was registered to your Amazon Web Services account at the time of its closure.

If you close the account that you're using for the Amazon Firewall Manager administrator, Amazon and Firewall Manager handle the closure as follows:

Amazon Web Services revokes the account's administrative access from the service and deactivates any policies that were managed by the administrator account. The protections that were provided by these policies are stopped across the organization.

  • Before closing your account, back up and then delete your policy data and other account resources. You will no longer have access to them after you close the account.

    • The account resources are subject to the policies of Amazon Web Services operating partners: Sinnet in the China (Beijing) Region and NWCD in the China (Ningxia) Region. Account closure procedures in China might take longer than in other Amazon Web Services Regions.