AI Vocabulary · 02 AI Infrastructure

What is Egress Fees?

Charges a cloud provider bills when data leaves its network, for example when you move to another provider.

Intermediate

Uploading data into a cloud is usually free. Taking it out is billed per gigabyte. These egress fees make switching more expensive and are one cause of vendor lock-in.

The EU Data Act removes switching charges, including egress, entirely from 12 January 2027. Until then providers may only charge costs directly linked to the switch. AWS already waives egress on request for customers who move all their data out, and includes 100 GB of transfer to the internet per month free of charge.

Why it matters for you

Egress also costs money in daily operation: serving large files, syncing between regions or running several clouds side by side. The Data Act ban applies to switching. Ongoing transfer costs remain.

Own it

Estimate how much data your product sends out each month and price it in. Ask for the exit terms in writing before you sign.

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