Amazon Web Services Inc. says it will no longer charge customers so-called “egress fees” when they want to move large amounts of data out of its cloud, meaning they can now migrate to another platform without having to pay for the privilege.

The company said in a blog post today that the offer is aimed at users who want to shift large quantities of data permanently out of AWS.

Amazon doesn’t appear to be doing this out of generosity, but rather in response to new regulatory requirements that will go into effect in the European Union later this year. The European Data Act, which was announced in January, aims to promote fair competition by making it easier for customers to switch from one cloud infrastructure provider to another. That said, AWS said its offer also applies to customers adopting a multicloud approach, as well as those who want to bring their data back in-house.

Although AWS already allowed customers to transfer up to 100 gigabytes of data out of its cloud platforms at no cost, that’s nowhere near enough for its largest customers. The egress fees it charged were considerable, which meant that large organizations were effectively being held hostage within Amazon’s cloud.

The company said in a blog post that customers will need to contact its support staff prior to ditching its cloud and migrating their data to an alternative platform. Once the customer is approved, it will be granted a sufficient number of “data transfer out” credits to complete its planned migration. Those DTO credits will then be valid for a period of 60 days, during which time the customer is expected to complete the entire migration.

For customers looking for a more detailed explanation of how it works, Amazon has created an FAQ page that breaks down the process.

The European Data Act is expected to go into effect in September 2025, and it contains a number of stipulations on how customer’s data is managed, shared and accessed. One of those measures is designed to protect EU companies from “unfair contractual terms,” while another provision mandates that they should be allowed to switch between cloud providers without accruing any additional costs. It’s essentially designed to prevent so-called vendor lock-in among cloud infrastructure providers.

Amazon’s move comes in the wake of a similar announcement from Google Cloud, which said in January that it will also waive egress fees for customers that want to leave its platform. As with Amazon, Google Cloud requires that customers seek approval before going ahead with their plans. The main difference between their policies is that Google Cloud seems to insist that customers close their accounts completely in order to qualify for the egress credits, whereas AWS does not.

Google Cloud may have decided it had an incentive to cancel egress fees first. As the smallest player among the big three cloud infrastructure providers, it’s always looking for an advantage that could convince AWS and Microsoft Azure customers to jump ship. With AWS’ offer, Google Cloud loses that small advantage.

AWS did warn users that it will carefully scrutinize any requests for egress waivers to ensure that no one abuses its offer simply to avoid the fees it charges on large-scale data transfers.

“We believe in customer choice, including the choice to move your data out of AWS,” AWS Developer Sébastien Stormacq said in a blog post. “The waiver on data transfer out to the internet charges also follows the direction set by the European Data Act and is available to all AWS customers around the world and from any AWS Region.”

It’s notable that Microsoft Corp, the second-biggest cloud infrastructure provider, has not yet made any similar announcement regarding egress fees, so it’s likely it’s still charging customers for data migrations. However, today’s move by AWS may force Microsoft eventually to follow suit.

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