Demystifying Amazon VPC peering charges

In this post, we walk you through how to identify and analyze the newly separated intra-region VPC Peering charges using Amazon Web Services (AWS) Billing and Cost Management console tools including AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Data Exports (Standard data export and Legacy AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR) export) and AWS Bills, showing you the differences between the old and new billing representations.

An Amazon virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) peering connection is a networking connection between two VPCs that customers can use to route traffic between them using private IPv4 addresses or IPv6 addresses. There is no charge to create a VPC peering connection. All data transfer over a VPC peering connection that stays within an Availability Zone (AZ) is free, even if it is between different accounts. Charges apply for data transfer over VPC peering connections that cross AZs and AWS Regions. The cross AZ charges are represented with the usage type “VpcPeering” (VpcPeering-In-Bytes and VpcPeering-Out-Bytes) in association with the source service generating the VPC peering usage such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), and Amazon VPC. In early 2025, we announced enhanced billing transparency for cross AZ VPC Peering connections, so that you can track and optimize your inter-VPC data transfer costs.

Using AWS Cost Explorer for VPC peering cost and usage analysis

Follow these steps to analyze VPC peering charges (Figure 1):

1. Navigate to the AWS Billing and Cost Management Console.
2. Choose Cost Explorer from the left navigation menu.
3. Configure filters:
   1. Under Time choose Standard type.
   2. Choose Date range from 2025-03-01 to 2025-04-30.
   3. Choose Granularity filter as Monthly.
   4. Chose Group by Usage type.
   5. Choose Region, for example US East (N. Virginia).
   6. Under Usage Type, filter for items containing
      • “VPCPeering-In-Bytes” and “VPCPeering-Out-Bytes“
      • DataTransfer-Regional-Bytes

Starting in April 2025, the VPC Peering charges for IntraRegion are reflected under the usage types “Region-Name-VpcPeering-In/Out-Bytes”, USE1-VpcPeering-In-Bytes, and USE1-VpcPeering-Out-Bytes. Prior to April 2025, these charges were recorded under the usage type DataTransfer-Regional-Bytes.

Figure 1: Visualize VPC peering charges before and after the change

Create custom reports in AWS Cost Explorer

To save your filtered view as a custom report for regular monitoring (optional):

1. Choose Save to report library.
2. Name your report (for example “VPC Peering Monthly Analysis”).

Visualize intra-Region VPC peering charges in AWS Cost Explorer

Follow these steps to analyze VPC peering pricing details (Figure 2):

1. Keep the previous configured filters and make more selections:
   1. Choose More filters.
   2. Choose Group by Charge type.
   3. Choose Charge type Usage.

Figure 2: Cost and usage breakdown details for VPC peering charges before and after

Using AWS Data Exports (standard data export or Legacy Cost and Usage Report (CUR) export)

This table shows the difference of values for the CUR query before and after the change.

Before April 2025: Using Legacy CUR export:

AWS Legacy CUR is a billing artifact that contains the most comprehensive set of cost and usage data available from AWS.

If you have an existing legacy CUR export set up, then you can use the following sample query to analyze VPC Peering costs for IntraRegion before April 2025. VPC peering charges are recorded under the Product Family Data Transfer and Product service code AWSDataTransfer.

If you have not setup Amazon Athena for querying cost and usage data, then follow the instructions first. Complete these steps to run the query.

1. Open the AWS Management Console and navigate to Athena
2. Choose or create a query workgroup.
   1. Verify that you have configured a query result location in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
3. Choose a CUR database from the dropdown menu on the left.

Figure 3: Athena console query editor

4. Write the following SQL query in the query editor.
5. Replace <your_legacy_cur_data_table> with your CUR table from the Athena console Tables pane (Figure 3).

   SELECT line_item_product_code, line_item_usage_type, line_item_operation, product_transfer_type, product_product_family, product_servicecode, line_item_line_item_description,sum(line_item_usage_amount) as "Usage",sum(line_item_unblended_cost) "costs"
   FROM <your_legacy_cur_data_table>
   WHERE month = '03' 
   AND year = '2025' 
   AND line_item_line_item_type = 'Usage' 
   AND (line_item_operation = 'VPCPeering-Out' OR line_item_operation = 'VPCPeering-In') 
   AND product_transfer_type='IntraRegion'
   group by line_item_product_code, line_item_usage_type, line_item_operation, product_transfer_type, product_product_family, product_servicecode, line_item_line_item_description

6. Choose the Run button (or press Ctrl+Enter on Windows/Linux or Cmd+Enter on Mac).
7. Wait for the query to complete.

This table shows VPC Peering costs and usage for IntraRegion usage type before the change for March 2025.

After April 2025: Using Legacy CUR export

To analyze VPC Peering costs for IntraRegion after April 2025, use the following sample query. VPC peering charges are categorized under the Product Family VPC Peering and the Product service code AmazonVPC.

Replace <your_legacy_cur_data_table> with your CUR table from the Athena console Tables pane (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Athena console query editor

SELECT line_item_product_code, line_item_usage_type,
line_item_operation, product_transfer_type,
product_product_family, product_servicecode,
line_item_line_item_description,sum(line_item_usage_amount) as "Usage",sum(line_item_unblended_cost) "costs"
FROM <your_legacy_cur_data_table>
WHERE
month = '05'
AND year = '2025'
AND line_item_line_item_type = 'Usage'
AND (line_item_operation = 'VPCPeering-Out'
OR line_item_operation = 'VPCPeering-In')
AND product_product_family = 'VPC Peering'
group by line_item_product_code, line_item_usage_type,
line_item_operation, product_transfer_type,
product_product_family, product_servicecode,
line_item_line_item_description

This table shows VPC Peering costs and usage for the IntraRegion usage type after the change for May 2025.

Before April 2025: Using standard data export

You can use AWS Data Export to create billing and cost management data exports and carbon emissions data exports using basic SQL, and visualize data by integrating with Amazon QuickSight.

To establish a CUR Data Export, follow the instructions. Use this sample query to analyze VPC Peering costs for IntraRegion prior to April 2025. In the standard data export, VPC peering charges are documented under the Product Family Data Transfer and Product service code AWSDataTransfer.

Replace <your_cur_data_exports_table> with your CUR table

Select line_item_product_code, line_item_usage_type,
line_item_resource_id, line_item_operation,
product [ 'transfer_type' ] as product_transfer_type,
product_product_family, product_servicecode,
line_item_line_item_description
from <your_cur_data_exports_table>
where date(line_item_usage_start_date) <
date('2025-04-01')
AND product [ 'transfer_type' ]='IntraRegion'
AND (line_item_operation = 'VPCPeering-Out'
or line_item_operation = 'VPCPeering-In')
AND line_item_line_item_type = 'Usage';

This table shows VPC Peering costs and usage for the IntraRegion usage type before the change prior to April 2025.

Use the following sample query to analyze VPC Peering costs for IntraRegion after April 2025. In CUR data exports, VPC peering charges are recorded under the Product Family VPC Peering and the Product service code AmazonVPC.

Select line_item_product_code, line_item_usage_type, line_item_resource_id, line_item_operation, product [ 'transfer_type' ] as product_transfer_type, product_product_family, product_servicecode, line_item_line_item_description
from <your_cur_data_exports_table> 
where date(line_item_usage_start_date) >= date('2025-04-01')
AND product [ 'transfer_type' ]='IntraRegion' 
AND (line_item_operation = 'VPCPeering-Out' or line_item_operation = 'VPCPeering-In') 
AND product_product_family= 'VPC Peering' 
AND line_item_line_item_type = 'Usage';

This table shows VPC Peering costs and usage for the IntraRegion usage type after the change, post April 2025.

Analyzing bills

To view VPC Peering charges for IntraRegion in the monthly bill before April 2025 (Figure 5):

1. Navigate to Bills in the Billing Console.
2. Choose the relevant billing period, for example March 2025.
3. Expand the Data Transfer section.
4. Look for the Region subsection that contains your peered VPC, for example the Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region or US East (N. Virginia) Region.
5. Expand the Bandwidth section.
6. Review line items with the description “regional data transfer in/out/between EC2 AZs or using elastic IPs or ELB”.

Figure 5: AWS Billing Console, Bills

To visualize VPC Peering charges for IntraRegion in the monthly bill after April 2025 (Figure 6):

1. Navigate to Bills in the Billing Console.
2. Choose the relevant billing period, for example April 2025.
3. Expand the Virtual Private Cloud section.
4. Look for the Region subsection under which you have your peered VPC, for example the Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region or US East (N. Virginia) Region.
5. Review the line items with the description “Amazon Virtual Private Cloud APS1-VpcPeering-In-Bytes” and “Amazon Virtual Private Cloud APS1-VpcPeering-Out-Bytes”.

Figure 6: AWS Billing Console, Bills

You may observe a reduction in Data Transfer usage and bill amounts as compared to previous bills because VPC peering charges now appear under the Virtual Private Cloud service.

Conclusion

Amazon VPC peering billing for IntraRegion has undergone changes starting in April 2025, providing clearer transparency and more granular cost tracking. The key takeaways include the following:

1. VPC peering charges for IntraRegion are now separately tracked under the Virtual Private Cloud service
2. VPC peering charges within the same AZ remains free.
3. Customers can use AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Data Exports (standard data export and Legacy CUR export), bills, and invoices to track and analyze VPC peering usage and costs.
4. The billing representation has shifted from ”Data Transfer” to the ”VPC Peering” product family.

AWS customers can use these billing artifacts to monitor and optimize their inter-VPC networking expenses.

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