As part of the AWS Free Tier, the Amazon RDS Free Tier helps new AWS customers get started with a managed database service in the cloud for free. You can use the Amazon RDS Free Tier to develop new applications, test existing applications, or simply gain hands-on experience with Amazon RDS. Each calendar month, the free tier will allow you to use the Amazon RDS resources listed below for free.

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AWS Free Tier includes 750hrs of Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) in a db.t2.micro, db.t3.micro, and db.t4g.micro Instances, 20GB of Storage, and 20GB for Backups each month, for one year.

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A valid credit card is required to sign up. See offer terms. If you already have an AWS account, visit the AWS Management Console to get started.


  • 750 hours of Amazon RDS Single-AZ db.t2.micro, db.t3.micro, and db.t4g.micro Instances usage running MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL databases each month. If running more than one instance, usage is aggregated across instance classes.
  • 750 hours of Amazon RDS Single-AZ db.t2.micro Instance usage running SQL Server (running SQL Server Express Edition) each month.
  • 20 GB of General Purpose SSD (gp2) storage per month.
  • Free backup storage up to 100% of the total provisioned storage size of your active DB instances for a region.*

* At any time, if your total backup storage exceeds the total active instance provisioned storage, then you will be charged the standard RDS rates for the incremental storage. Based upon our experience, the vast majority of databases require less raw storage for a backup than for the primary dataset meaning most customers will never have to pay for backup storage..

In addition to these services, the AWS Management Console is available at no additional charge to help you build and manage your DB Instances on Amazon RDS.


The AWS Free Tier allow you to use the product for free up to specified limits for one year from the date your account was activated. When your free usage expires or if your application use exceeds the free usage tiers, you simply pay standard, pay-as-you-go service rates (see Amazon RDS pricing page for full pricing details). Restrictions apply; see offer terms for more details. More information is also available in the Free Tier section of the Amazon RDS FAQ document.

The free usage tier applies across all AWS Regions except GovCloud (US) and Asia Pacific (Osaka) Local. Your usage is calculated each month across all regions and automatically applied to your bill. For example, you will receive 750 Micro DB Instance hours for free across all of the Regions, not 750 hours per Region. Note that free usage does not accumulate from one billing period to the next.

The Amazon RDS free tier applies to Amazon RDS for MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL and SQL Server (running SQL Server Express Edition).

Deploying and managing databases is one of the most complex, time-consuming, and expensive activities in IT. Amazon RDS removes this complexity by automating many of the undifferentiated but time-consuming and critical administrative tasks such as hardware provisioning, software installation and patching, storage management, and backups for disaster recovery. This enables developers and database administrators to free up time to focus on innovation. As your application needs grow, you can scale the compute capacity easily.

The service handles time-consuming database management tasks so you can pursue higher value application development. If you are managing your own database deployments today, you can move to Amazon RDS and gain the following benefits:

  Self-Managed Amazon RDS
Point-and-click deployment in minutes with pre-configured parameters  
Scale compute resources with a few clicks or single API call  
Automated backups and disaster recovery  
Managed database snapshots for backup or database cloning  
Access to hardware and complete environment control  
Automatic software patching  
Compatibility with existing applications and tools
Metrics on CPU, disk and memory utilization provided in a dashboard at no additional cost  
  • Data Durability and Disaster Recovery – Turned on by default, the automated backup feature of Amazon RDS enables point-in-time recovery for your DB Instance. Amazon RDS will back up your database and transaction logs and store both for a user-specified retention period. This allows you to restore your DB Instance to any second during your retention period, up to the last five minutes. Your automatic backup retention period can be configured to up to 35 days.
  • Manageability – Amazon RDS automatically patches your OS software and enables you to automatically upgrade your database software. Additionally, Amazon RDS provides full visibility into your CPU, disk and memory utilization via the AWS Management Console.
  • Scalability – Using a few clicks on the AWS Management Console, you can simply scale up the instance type from the smallest to the largest or anything in between. NOTE: Using the scale compute feature will consume capacity beyond the free tier usage capacity. You will incur standard, pay-as-you-go rates for this additional capacity.