Which EC2 Instance Types Can You Use on the AWS Free Plan?

The July 2025 change: Free plan vs. Paid plan

AWS reworked the Free Tier in July 2025. Accounts created on or after July 15, 2025 choose between a Free account plan and a Paid account plan at sign-up. Either way, new customers get USD 100 in sign-up credits and can earn up to USD 100 more by completing getting-started activities.

• Free plan: you are never charged. It ends after six months or when the credits run out, whichever comes first. Only some services are available; Savings Plans, Reserved Instances and other features that could quickly drain the credits are excluded, and other promotional credits don't apply.
• Paid plan: every service is available. Usage beyond your credits, or on services the credits don't cover, is billed at standard pay-as-you-go rates.

Accounts created before July 15, 2025 keep the original 12-month Free Tier: usage within the limits is free, and anything beyond is billed pay-as-you-go.

Eligible EC2 instance types

According to the Amazon EC2 User Guide, it depends on when the account was created:

• On or after July 15, 2025: t3.micro, t3.small, t4g.micro, t4g.small, c7i-flex.large and m7i-flex.large, for six months or until the credits are used up.
• Before July 15, 2025: t2.micro, or t3.micro in Regions where t2.micro isn't available.

The t4g types run on AWS Graviton (arm64) processors and need an arm64 AMI. In the EC2 launch wizard, eligible instance types and AMIs are labeled Free tier eligible. You can also list them for a Region with the AWS CLI:

aws ec2 describe-instance-types \
    --filters Name=free-tier-eligible,Values=true \
    --query "InstanceTypes[*].[InstanceType]" \
    --output text | sort

Also watch your vCPU quota. t3.micro, t3.small, t4g.micro, t4g.small and m7i-flex.large each have 2 vCPUs, and new accounts often start with a low Standard On-Demand quota, so running a few at once can trigger VcpuLimitExceeded. Check and raise it in Service Quotas.

For storage, the standard, st1, sc1, gp2 and gp3 EBS volume types are Free Tier eligible. On older accounts, note that t3.micro launches in Unlimited mode by default, which can add charges based on CPU usage.

How to check which plan your account is on

• Console: the cost and usage widget on Console Home shows the Free plan's remaining credits, days left and expiration date. The Billing and Cost Management console shows them too.
• Email: AWS sends periodic alerts about your credit balance and the end of the Free plan period.
• API or CLI: call the Free Tier GetAccountPlanState operation.

aws freetier get-account-plan-state

In the response, accountPlanType is FREE or PAID, accountPlanStatus is NOT_STARTED, ACTIVE or EXPIRED, accountPlanRemainingCredits is the remaining credit balance, and accountPlanExpirationDate is when the plan expires.

When the Free plan ends, and how to upgrade

When the Free plan ends you are not switched to billing. Instead, the account closes automatically and you lose access to its resources and data. AWS keeps the content for 90 days; upgrade to the Paid plan within that window to keep the account, or it is permanently deleted along with all its resources. After upgrading, any remaining credits apply to future bills.

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console.
2. Open the Upgrade plan page in the Billing console.
3. Review what you gain and choose Upgrade account.

Upgrading is one-way: a Paid plan can't go back to the Free plan. Joining AWS Organizations or setting up an AWS Control Tower landing zone, among other actions, also upgrades a Free plan automatically.

Free plan accounts in CloudPilot

CloudPilot calls GetAccountPlanState to detect the plan of the selected credentials. For a Free plan account, the EC2 creation dialog lists only the six instance types above, subject to what the Region actually offers. The Free plan itself does not restrict Regions. Accounts created through AWS's no-card sign-up can only create resources in one Region, assigned by contact address: us-east-2 (Ohio), eu-north-1 (Stockholm) or ap-southeast-2 (Sydney). CloudPilot detects that Region automatically and runs deployments and new-account activities only there.

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