Close an AWS account

If you no longer need your AWS account, you can close it at any time by following the instructions in this section. After you've closed it, you can reopen it within 90 days from the day you closed the account. The timespan between the day you closed the account and when AWS permanently closes the account is referred to as the post-closure period.

What you need to know before closing your account

Before closing your AWS account, you should consider the following:

• Closing your account will serve as your notice of termination of the AWS Customer Agreement for this account.

• You don't need to delete resources in your AWS account before closing it. However, we recommend you back up any resources or data that you want to keep. For instructions about how to back up a particular resource, see the appropriate AWS documentation for that service.

• You can reopen your account during the post-closure period. Charges for the services that remained in your account will restart if you reopen it. You also remain responsible for any unpaid invoices and outstanding Reserved Instances and Savings Plans.

• You remain responsible for all outstanding fees and charges for the services consumed before account closure. You will receive an AWS bill the following month after closing your account. For example, if you closed your account on January 15, you will receive a bill at the beginning of February for usage incurred from January 1 through January 15. You will continue receiving invoices for Reserved Instances and Savings Plans after closing your account until they expire.

• You will no longer be able to access AWS services that were previously available in your account. However, you can sign-in and access a closed AWS account during the post-closure period only to view past billing information, access account settings, or contact AWS Support.

• You can't use the same email address that was registered to your AWS account at the time of its closure as the primary email of another AWS account. If you want to use the same email address for a different AWS account, we recommend updating it before closure. See Update the AWS account name, email address, or password for the root user for instructions on updating your email address.

• If you've enabled multi-factor authentication (MFA) on your AWS account root user, or configured an MFA device on an IAM user, MFA isn't removed automatically when you close the account. If you choose to leave MFA turned on during the 90 days post-closure period, keep the MFA device active until the post-closure period has expired in case you need to access the account during that time. Note, the hardware TOTP token devices cannot be associated with another user after the permanent closure of your account. If you would like to use the hardware TOTP token with another user later, you have the option to deactivate the hardware MFA device before closing the account. MFA devices for IAM users must be deleted by the account administrator.

Additional considerations for member accounts

• When you close a member account, that account isn't removed from the organization until after the post-closure period. During the post-closure period, a closed member account still counts toward your quota of accounts in the organization. To avoid having the account count against the quota, see Remove a member account from your organization before closing it.

• You can only close 10% of member accounts within a rolling 30 day period. This quota is not bound by a calendar month, but starts when you close an account. Within 30 days of that initial account closure, you can't exceed the 10% account closure limit. The minimum account closure is 10 and the maximum account closure is 1000, even if 10% of accounts exceeds 1000. For more information about Organizations quotas, see Quotas for AWS Organizations.

• If you use AWS Control Tower, you need to unmanage the member account before you attempt to close the account. See Unmanage a member account in the AWS Control Tower User Guide.

Service specific considerations

• AWS Marketplace subscriptions aren't automatically canceled on account closure. If you have any subscriptions, first terminate all instances of your software in the subscriptions. Then, go to the Manage subscriptions page of the AWS Marketplace console and cancel your subscriptions.

• After an account has been closed, AWS will send daily emails for up to five days before we suspend the domain. After the domain has been suspended, and depending on the domain’s registrar, we will either delete the domain within 30 days or release the domain to its registrar. For more information, see My AWS account is closed or permanently closed, and my domain is registered with Route 53.

• AWS CloudTrail is a foundational security service. This means that trails created by users can continue to exist and deliver events even after an AWS account is closed, unless a user explicitly deletes the trails in their AWS account before closing it. Before you close your AWS account, consider the following:

  • Trails continue to exist even after the post-closure period has passed. The post-closure period refers to the 90 days between when you close your account and when AWS permanently closes your AWS account.

  • This behavior also applies to the organization trails that are created by the management account or the delegated administrator, and to multi-Region organization trails that are created in the organization's member accounts.

  • For trails that deliver events to an S3 bucket in the same account, trails continue to exist even after the account is closed. However, since the S3 bucket is deleted when the account is closed, trails do not continue to deliver events.

  • For trails that deliver events to an S3 bucket in a different account, trails continue to exist even after the account is closed. Trails also continue to deliver events to the S3 bucket if events can be delivered. For example, organization trails continue to deliver events to the S3 bucket if you close a member account in an organization, but you do not close the management account.

  • If you have enabled encryption on trails with AWS KMS keys that reside in a closed account, you will not be able to access the log files delivered using these trails with the KMS key of the closed account. To regain access to these CloudTrail log files, you will need to reopen the key-owning account within 90 days of when that account was closed.

  For more information and information on how to request trail deletion after an AWS account has been closed, see AWS account closure and trails in the CloudTrail User Guide.

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How to close your account

You can close your AWS account using the following procedure. Note, that there is different guidance provided in each tab depending on the type of account [standalone, member, management, and AWS GovCloud (US)] you want to close.

If you experience any issues during the process of closing your account, see Troubleshooting issues with AWS account closure.

Standalone account

A standalone account is an individually managed account that is not part of AWS Organizations.

To close a standalone account from the Accounts page

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console as the root user in the AWS account that you want to close. You can't close an account while signed in as an IAM user or role.

2. On the navigation bar in the upper-right corner, choose your account name or number, and then choose Account.

3. On the Account page, choose the Close account button.

4. Type your account ID (displayed at the top of the closure dialog box) to confirm that you have read and understand the account closure process.

5. Choose the Close account button to initiate the account closure process.

6. Within a few minutes, you should receive an email confirmation that your account has been closed.

Note

This task isn't supported in the AWS CLI or by an API operation from one of the AWS SDKs. You can perform this task only by using the AWS Management Console.

Member account

A member account is an AWS account that is part of AWS Organizations.

To close a member account from the AWS Organizations console

1. Sign in to the AWS Organizations console.

2. On the AWS accounts page, find and choose the name of the member account you want to close. You can navigate the OU hierarchy, or look at a flat list of accounts without the OU structure.

3. Choose Close next to the account name at the top of the page. Organizations in Consolidated billing mode won't be able to see the Close button in the console. To close an account in consolidated billing mode, you will need to follow the steps in the Standalone account tab.

4. Read and ensure that you understand the account closure guidance.

5. Enter the member account ID, and then choose Close account to initiate the account closure process.

To close a member account from the Accounts page

Optionally, you can close an AWS member account directly from the Account page in the AWS Management Console. For step-by-step guidance, follow the instructions in the Standalone account tab.

To close a member account using AWS CLI and SDKs

For instructions on how to close a member account using the AWS CLI and SDKs, see Closing a member account in your organization in the AWS Organizations User Guide.

Management account

A management account is an AWS account that acts as the parent or root account for AWS Organizations.

Note

You cannot close a management account directly from the AWS Organizations console.

To close a management account from the Accounts page

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console as the root user for the management account that you want to close. You can't close an account while signed in as an IAM user or role.

2. Verify that there are no active member accounts remaining in your organization. To do this, go to the AWS Organizations console, and make sure that all member accounts are showing Suspended next to their account names. If you have a member account that is still active, you will need to follow the account closure guidance provided in the Member account tab before you can move to the next step.

3. On the navigation bar in the upper-right corner, choose your account name or number, and then choose Account.

4. On the Account page, choose the Close account button.

5. Type your account ID (displayed at the top of the closure dialog box) to confirm that you have read and understand the account closure process.

6. Choose the Close account button to initiate the account closure process.

7. Within a few minutes, you should receive an email confirmation that your account has been closed.

Note

This task isn't supported in the AWS CLI or by an API operation from one of the AWS SDKs. You can perform this task only by using the AWS Management Console.

AWS GovCloud (US) account

An AWS GovCloud (US) account is always linked to a single standard AWS account for billing and payment purposes.

To close an AWS GovCloud (US) account

If you have an AWS account that is linked to a AWS GovCloud (US) account, you need to close the standard account before you close the AWS GovCloud (US) account. For more details, including how to back-up data and avoid unintended AWS GovCloud (US) charges, see Closing an AWS GovCloud (US) account in the AWS GovCloud (US) User Guide.

What to expect after you close your account

Immediately after you close your account, the following will occur:

• You will receive an email confirming the account closure to the root user’s email address. If you don’t receive this email within a few hours, see Troubleshooting issues with AWS account closure.

• Any member account that you close will display a SUSPENDED label next to its account name in the AWS Organizations console for up to 90 days after the original closure date. After 90 days, the member account will no longer be displayed in the AWS Organizations console.

• If you have granted permissions to access services in your AWS account to other accounts, any access requests made from those accounts should fail after account closure. If you reopen your AWS account, other AWS accounts can again access your account's AWS services and resources if you granted the necessary permissions to them.

Post-closure period

The post-closure period refers to the length of time between the day you closed your account and when AWS permanently closes your AWS account. The post-closure period is 90 days. During the post-closure period, you can access your content and AWS services only by reopening your account. After the post-closure period, AWS permanently closes your AWS account, and you can no longer reopen it. AWS will also delete any content and resources in your account. After an account has been permanently closed, its AWS account ID can never be reused.

Reopening your AWS account

Your account will permanently close in 90 days, after which you will not be able to reopen your account and AWS will delete the content remaining in your account. To reopen your account before it is permanently closed, (1) you must contact AWS Support as soon as possible, and (2) we must receive full payment of any outstanding balance, including providing required information as specified on the invoice, within 60 days from the date of account closure.

Note

Charges for the services that remained in your account will restart if you reopen it.