Troubleshooting Cost and Usage Reports

There are no report files in the Amazon S3 bucket

Confirm that the Amazon S3 bucket policy grants the billingreports.amazonaws.com service permission to put files in the bucket. For more information on the required bucket policy, see Setting up an Amazon S3 bucket for Cost and Usage Reports.

One of my report data partitions is empty

If a report is larger than most applications can handle, then AWS splits the report into multiple files. A report update might have fewer individual file partitions than an earlier report version.

Review the report’s manifest file to find any empty files that you don’t need to ingest.

My Cost and Usage Report data doesn’t match the data in other Billing and Cost Management features

Other Billing and Cost Management features (Cost Explorer, Detailed Billing Reports, Billing and Cost Management console) might present your costs differently for the following reasons:

• The billing features round cost data in different ways.

• The billing features might have different data refresh settings. For example, you can choose whether or not your Cost and Usage Report automatically refreshes a previously closed bill with any refunds, credits, or Support fees applied after the bill is finalized. Cost Explorer automatically reflects the same items. In this scenario, if you don’t activate the automatic refresh on your Cost and Usage Report, then the Cost and Usage Report data won’t match the Cost Explorer data.

• The billing features can group charges differently. For example, the Bills page in the Billing and Cost Management console shows data transfer charges as a separate Data Transfer grouping within your AWS Service Charges. Meanwhile, Cost and Usage Reports and Cost Explorer show data transfer charges as a usage type for each service.

If after reviewing these reasons you still believe you're seeing discrepancies between your Cost and Usage Report and other Billing and Cost Management features, open a support case to request a review of your cost data. In your support case, make sure to provide the report name and the billing period that you would like reviewed. For more information on opening a case, see Getting help with your exports and reports.

I want to backfill data because I changed the settings of my report

Open a support case to request a backfill of your cost data. In your support case, make sure to provide the report name and the billing period that you want backfilled. For more information on opening a case, see Getting help with your exports and reports.

Note that you can't get a backfill of cost data for the following scenarios:

• You can't get a backfill for cost data from before the date that you created the account.

• If you use AWS Organizations and the structure of your organization changed, such as which account is designated the management account, then you can't get a backfill of data with the previous organization structure.

• If you use AWS Organizations and you change organizations, then you can't get a backfill of data from prior to joining your current organization.

My report file folder in Amazon S3 is in an unnamed folder

Any / character in the Report path prefix of your report generates an unnamed folder in your Amazon S3 bucket. To remove the unnamed folder in your next report update, edit your report settings and remove the / character from the Report path prefix. For instructions, see Editing your Cost and Usage Reports configuration.

I can’t select the option to include resource IDs on my report

When you create your report, you can select the option to Include resource ID. If you create your report with Report versioning set to Overwrite existing report, then you can’t modify your Include resource ID selection after you create your report. To include resource IDs, you must create a new report and select the Include resource ID option.

My Cost and Usage Report queries for Amazon Athena don’t work on Amazon Redshift, or my Amazon Redshift queries don’t work on Amazon Athena

Amazon Athena and Amazon Redshift databases format Cost and Usage Report columns differently. Amazon Athena adds an underscore between words in the column name (line_item_normalized_usage_amount). Amazon Redshift adds an underscore between the column type and the attribute (lineitem_normalizedusageamount). Make sure to modify your queries to match the column name format in Amazon Athena or Amazon Redshift.

The columns included in my report have changed from a previous month

The columns that AWS includes in your report depend on your AWS usage. Every report includes columns with the identity/, bill/, and lineItem/ prefixes:

• identity/LineItemId

• identity/TimeInterval

• bill/InvoiceId

• bill/BillingEntity

• bill/BillType

• bill/PayerAccountId

• bill/BillingPeriodStartDate

• bill/BillingPeriodEndDate

• lineItem/UsageAccountId

• lineItem/LineItemType

• lineItem/UsageStartDate

• lineItem/UsageEndDate

• lineItem/ProductCode

• lineItem/UsageType

• lineItem/Operation

• lineItem/AvailabilityZone

• lineItem/ResourceId

• lineItem/UsageAmount

• lineItem/NormalizationFactor

• lineItem/NormalizedUsageAmount

• lineItem/CurrencyCode

• lineItem/UnblendedRate

• lineItem/UnblendedCost

• lineItem/BlendedRate

• lineItem/BlendedCost

• lineItem/LineItemDescription

• lineItem/TaxType

• lineItem/LegalEntity

All other columns are included only if your monthly AWS usage generates data to populate those columns.

For example, your report includes savingsPlan/ columns only if you used Savings Plans during that month.

The queries or tables based on my report don’t work because the columns in my report have changed

The columns that AWS includes in your report depend on your AWS usage for the month. Because the columns included in your report can change, it’s a best practice to reference column names instead of column numbers in any custom queries or tables based on your report.

I need help querying my report

For detailed information about querying your Cost and Usage Report, see CUR Query Library Help in the AWS Well-Architected Labs website.

I can’t find the billing data for my Amazon EC2 Dedicated Host

In the ResourceID column, look for the Dedicated Host ID rather than the instance ID. Because Dedicated Hosts are metered by Dedicated Host running hours, your report shows Dedicated Host usage by metered hours associated with the host ID.

I don’t understand the billing data for my Amazon EC2 Elastic IP addresses

Amazon EC2 Elastic IP addresses are metered in aggregate. This means that each line item in your report doesn’t correspond with an individual Elastic IP address. Each line item represents the total number of chargeable hours. You can have one Elastic IP address assigned to a running instance at no charge. You’re charged per hour on a pro-rata basis for each additional Elastic IP address that you assign to the instance. Additionally, AWS charges an hourly fee for unassigned Elastic IP addresses.

I use consolidated billing and I don’t understand the difference between unblended and blended rates or costs

With consolidated billing for AWS Organizations, unblended and blended rates or costs can help you understand how much an account's usage would cost for a standalone account versus a linked account in an organization. Some services offer pricing tiers that can lower unit costs as usage increases. Because AWS aggregates all usage for a service in an organization, individual accounts might access lower-priced tiers sooner when their usage is aggregated in an organization's monthly usage.

Unblended rates are the rates associated with an individual account's service usage. For a line item, the unblended cost is usage multiplied by the unblended rate. The unblended cost would be the cost of the account's usage if it were a standalone account. Blended rates are the rates associated with total usage in an organization averaged across accounts. For a line item, the blended cost is usage multiplied by the blended rate. The blended cost is the cost attributed to the account's usage as a linked account in an organization.

For more information and examples of calculating unblended and blended costs, see Understanding Consolidated Bills in the AWS Billing User Guide

Some line items in my report have a blended rate or blended cost of 0

Amazon EC2 line items with a Reserved Instance discount have an blended rate of zero. For these line items, the LineItemType is Discounted Usage.

The blended cost is the usage multiplied by the blended rate. If the value for blended rate or usage is zero, then the blended cost is also zero.

I don't understand how All Upfront Reserved Instances are amortized in my report

Because All Upfront Reserved Instances are paid in full upfront, the amortized costs are reflected in your report as the upfront payment divided over the associated time period (one year or three years).

reservation/AmortizedUpfrontCostForUsage and reservation/EffectiveCost are the same rate for All Upfront Reserved Instances. This is because both columns are an equal division of the upfront payment for the Reserved Instance over the total hours of its term.

It's expected that your report has RIFee line items populated for All Upfront Reserved Instances, even though the RIFee is $0.00. These line items represent the recurring hourly costs for the month, and they have additional usage data in other columns. All Reserved Instances generate RIFee line items.