The Data Act ends cloud switching fees on 12 January 2027

From 12 January 2027 the Data Act bars cloud providers from charging EU customers switching fees, including data egress charges for moving data to a new provider or to your own servers. Traffic between two clouds you use side by side can still be charged.

If you are leaving AWS altogether, don’t wait for January, because AWS already waives transfer charges on request when you move out. When you move one whole service, such as all of S3, and keep the application on AWS, the ban only helps from 12 January. AWS needs the Data Act switching request at least two months before such a switch starts, counted from the day the request is complete, so to start on 12 January, send it well before 12 November.

What the Data Act says

The Data Act, Regulation (EU) 2023/2854, has applied since 12 September 2025, according to the European Commission, so you can use its switching procedure now. Until 11 January 2027 a provider may charge for a switch, but no more than the costs directly linked to it.

AWS’s programme for customers who leave

The programme has run since March 2024 and covers every AWS region. According to the AWS post updated on 30 September 2025, you apply through AWS Support, and once the request is approved you get credits for data transfer out to the internet and 90 days to finish the move. AWS’s FAQ still says 60 days, so check the term in AWS’s reply to your request. According to the FAQ, within that term you delete all remaining data from your account or close it, so you can’t keep even backups in S3.

Outside the AWS programme and outside the Data Act procedure, you pay list price for the transfer. The first 100 GB a month are free, and sending 5 TB from Frankfurt to the internet in one month costs about $450 at AWS’s list prices of 16 September 2026.

How a Data Act switch works on AWS

If the payer account, the one that pays the bill, has an EU country in its account settings, AWS’s Data Act addendum covers it together with every account billed through it. A payer account whose country is outside the EU, the UK included, doesn’t qualify. The addendum distinguishes a Complete Switch, which moves all your services, from a Service Switch, which moves one or more whole services while the rest stays on AWS. For S3, a whole service means every bucket on every account under that payer.

Once the switch starts, you have a transitional period of 30 calendar days to move the data. If AWS finds that technically impossible, it can extend the period to seven months at most. If you copy data before the switch starts, in December for example, you may pay list price for that transfer.

When the application writes to the new provider and all the data is there, check the copy: compare object counts and checksums, and include older versions in versioned buckets. Then delete the moved service’s data from AWS, and only then notify AWS that the switch is complete. The switch ends when AWS receives your notice, at the end of the transitional period at the latest, and the data must be gone from AWS by then. If you don’t send the notice or you leave data on AWS, you pay standard rates and have to reimburse AWS for any credits or fee waivers you received for the switch.

What it means for a small company

Nothing changes on 12 January if you stay on AWS and move nothing.

For a full move off AWS, ask AWS Support to waive the transfer charges before you start copying data. The hosting cost calculator estimates what you will pay at Hetzner or OVH. Savings Plans, Reserved Instances and any minimum spend in your AWS agreement still apply after you leave, which is why I check them first when I draw up a cloud exit plan.

If the application and its data are to stay split across two clouds, Article 34 of the regulation lets providers go on charging for the traffic between them after 12 January 2027, at no more than what the traffic costs them.

The date matters most when you want to move all of S3 and keep the application on AWS. If the move can wait, set the Service Switch to start on 12 January 2027 or later. If AWS only receives the complete request on 1 December, the switch starts on 1 February at the earliest.

Just make sure nothing stays in S3. A single bucket with logs or Terraform state is enough to make it something other than a Service Switch, and then you pay list price for the transfer.