Quick Scoop: How Much Storage Does AWS Free Tier Provide?

AWS’s Free Tier doesn’t give you one single “storage bucket” – it spreads free storage across several services, each with its own limit. In total, you get up to 45–50 GB of general-purpose cloud storage for 12 months , plus some always‑free options, depending on what you use.

Breakdown of Free Storage in AWS Free Tier (2026)

1. S3 (Simple Storage Service) – 5 GB for 12 months

  • 5 GB of standard S3 storage per month, free for the first 12 months after you create your account.
  • This is the most commonly used “object storage” for files, backups, images, logs, etc.

2. EBS (Elastic Block Store) – 30 GB for 12 months

  • 30 GB of gp2/gp3 EBS storage per month, free for 12 months.
  • EBS is block storage attached to EC2 instances (like a virtual hard drive for your VM).
  • It’s measured in GB‑months , so you could, for example, use 60 GB for half a month and still stay within the 30 GB‑month free allowance.

3. EFS (Elastic File System) – 5 GB for 12 months

  • 5 GB of EFS standard storage per month, free for 12 months.
  • EFS is shared file storage that multiple EC2 instances can mount simultaneously (like a network file share).

4. DynamoDB – 25 GB always free

  • 25 GB of on‑demand DynamoDB storage, always free (not just for 12 months).
  • This is NoSQL database storage, not general file storage, but still counts as “storage” in AWS terms.

5. ECR (Elastic Container Registry) – 500 MB per month always free

  • 500 MB of private container image storage per month, always free.
  • Mainly for Docker/container images, not general files.

What This Means in Practice

If you’re thinking in terms of “how much can I store for free like Dropbox/Google Drive?”, the closest analogue is S3 :

  • S3: 5 GB (12 months)
  • EBS: 30 GB (12 months, tied to EC2 usage)
  • EFS: 5 GB (12 months, shared file system)

So for typical file/object storage, you effectively have 5 GB via S3 , with additional storage (EBS/EFS) primarily intended to support running servers and apps, not just static file hosting.

If you also count database and container storage:

  • +25 GB in DynamoDB (always free)
  • +0.5 GB in ECR (always free)

But these are specialized, not general file storage.

Important Caveats

  • 12‑month limit: S3, EBS, and EFS free tiers expire 12 months after your AWS account creation date.
  • Overage charges: If you exceed any limit (e.g., 6 GB in S3), you pay for the excess at standard rates.
  • Region & usage patterns: Some services have additional free limits for requests, data transfer, or snapshots (e.g., 1 GB of EBS snapshots).

Mini TL;DR

  • General object/file storage (S3): 5 GB for 12 months.
  • Block storage for EC2 (EBS): 30 GB for 12 months.
  • Shared file storage (EFS): 5 GB for 12 months.
  • Database storage (DynamoDB): 25 GB always free.
  • Container image storage (ECR): 500 MB always free.

So, in simple terms: about 40 GB of general-purpose storage for 12 months, plus 25.5 GB of specialized storage that’s always free.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.