Can I reopen my closed AWS account?

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I closed my AWS account, but I want to reopen it and continue to use AWS services.

Resolution

Important:

  • For closed accounts that were linked to an organization, use the organization's management account to submit the request to reopen the account. 
  • Your account permanently closes in 90 days, after which you won't be able to reopen your account and AWS will delete the content remaining in your account. To reopen your account before your account is permanently closed you must contact AWS Support as soon as possible. Also, within 60 days from the date of account closure, any outstanding balances must be fully paid, including providing any information specified on the invoice.

If you closed your account within the last 90 days, then complete the following steps to contact AWS Support to reopen your account:

  1. Open the AWS Management Console, and then sign in to your AWS account as the root user.
  2. If you can't sign in, then choose Contact AWS Support, and then sign in as the root user. This is required to reopen an account.
  3. Open the AWS Billing and Cost Management console.
  4. Check that a valid default payment method is associated with your account.
  5. Open a support case, and then complete the following steps:
    In the Create case section, select Account and billing support, and then enter all the required details.
    If it's urgent, then choose the Phone contact method to have an AWS Support agent contact you to help reopen your account.

Note: If you can't access your account to open a support case, then use the AWS Support form to contact AWS Support.

After AWS reopens your account

Note: After AWS reopens your account, it can take up to 24 hours for all services to activate.

After your account is reopened, complete the following steps:

  1. Check that you received an email to confirm that your services are active.
  2. Sign in to the AWS Management Console.
  3. Resubscribe to AWS services.
  4. Verify that your account and payment methods are correct, and update any outdated information. Be sure to check your email address, phone number, account name, and your mailing address.

After your account is reestablished, check the following:

  • If you had any Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, then check if they're in the Stopped state. You might need to restart your EC2 instances.
  • If you had any Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) instances, then you can restore the instances from an automatically generated DB snapshot.
    Note: The snapshot is taken on the account closure date and is available for up to 30 days from the date that the account is reopened.
  • If you had any AWS Marketplace subscriptions, then you must cancel your subscription and resubscribe to the product.
  • Check for active resources that you no longer need
    Note: You might incur charges for any AWS services and resources that you didn't delete before you closed your account.

Note: The account resources in AWS China (Beijing) and AWS China (Ningxia) Regions are subject to the policies of the Sinnet (Beijing) and NWCD (Ningxia) operating partner policies. Account closure procedures might take longer in China than in other AWS Regions.

For billing and administration, service attributes are retained as long as needed. To learn more about account information retention, see Privacy Notice.

Related information

How do I close my AWS account?

Close a standalone AWS account

AWS OFFICIAL
AWS OFFICIALUpdated 2 months ago
12 Comments

The resolution doesn't work for me. Can't even proceed with #1 (Sign in to your AWS account as the root user).

It says "There was an error An AWS account with that sign-in information does not exist. Try again or create a new account." But when trying to create a new account, the email says the account exists...

replied a year ago

Thank you for your comment. We'll review and update the Knowledge Center article as needed.

profile pictureAWS
MODERATOR
replied a year ago

With AWS organizations you can now create a new AWS account without ever having to create a "root" user in the new account. The only way to we allow folks into new account is via switch-role to OrganizationAccountAccessRole. So if an account is created in this manner and then closed, there is no "root" user. How does one then get the account re-opened? Can we open a support case from the Org/Mgmt account to do this? If so you need to update the instructions to reflect this. Thanks

replied 10 months ago

Thank you for your comment. We'll review and update the Knowledge Center article as needed.

profile pictureAWS
MODERATOR
replied 10 months ago

repost.aws/knowledge-center/reopen-aws-account#COPyQZsKo5T82GVjXGnB7KfQ

The resolution doesn't work for me. Can't even proceed with #1 (Sign in to your AWS account as the root user).

It says "There was an error An AWS account with that sign-in information does not exist. Try again or create a new account." But when trying to create a new account, the email says the account exists...

I have this same issue

garv
replied 8 months ago

Hello,

We are facing the same issue, and we would like to re-open the account. Thank you in advance

replied 8 months ago

The resolution doesn't work for me. Can't even proceed with #1 (Sign in to your AWS account as the root user).

It says "There was an error An AWS account with that sign-in information does not exist. Try again or create a new account." But when trying to create a new account, the email says the account exists...

I have this same issue

matt
replied 8 months ago

Thank you for your comment. We'll review and update the Knowledge Center article as needed.

profile pictureAWS
MODERATOR
replied 8 months ago

aws is not working properly anymore. I just created an account directly on suspension, there is no access to AWS, I swear, AWS will no longer have users and will switch to another platform.

replied 6 months ago

Thank you for your comment. We'll review and update the Knowledge Center article as needed.

profile pictureAWS
MODERATOR
replied 6 months ago

Clearly, this is a policy issue because AWS defines it as a permanent account closure. I would make a request for them to reconsider opening accounts that have been permanently closed, provided they meet certain reopening requirements such as a history of good payment behavior and the possibility of reopening after a couple of years (not a mockery of 5 to 10 years). On the other hand, responding to this resolution: 'NO, I do not agree to open another unnecessary email just to register.' In my particular case, I remember trying AWS, which I must admit is quite extensive, and I found it overwhelming to understand how to control expenses. I always paid, and it wasn't much, but I became concerned about the possibility of an accidental charge for requesting something without knowledge or a clear understanding of its costs. Probably for that reason, I closed it, hoping to reopen it in the future. However, not allowing the reopening of an account after some time, as if it were a permanent punishment, seems wrong and unnecessary. It also means losing potential opportunities for AWS to generate income. Regards.

replied 2 months ago

Hello, Sebastian,

Please bear in mind, that the 90 day deletion policy is mainly a security measure to keep AWS servers from being overloaded with new and active accounts, not to mention to avoid extremely old accounts from being reopened by bad actors for abuse and also to protect user information. Please remember that the 90 day post closure period is given as a warning when closing an account, making this an user responsibility, and this is also available to read in AWS documentation below:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/accounts/latest/reference/manage-acct-closing.html

To avoid closing an account without incurring charges, you can keep an account active and protected with the tools AWS offers:

Budgets: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/budgets-managing-costs.html

Cloudtrail: https://aws.amazon.com/cloudtrail/getting-started/

Cloudwatch: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/WhatIsCloudWatch.html

Cost Anomaly Detection: https://aws.amazon.com/aws-cost-management/aws-cost-anomaly-detection/

A really useful work around when closing an account and being able to keep an email for the future, would be changing the email to a 'dummy email' before closing the account, this will release the email for future usage.

We appreciate your understanding.

AWS
replied a month ago