Cloud egress fees
Also known as: egress fees, data egress charges, data transfer out fees, egress charges
Cloud egress fees are charges cloud providers apply when data leaves their network, such as when users download files, data moves to another cloud, or backups are restored to an office.
Moving data in is usually free, but moving it out is often billed per gigabyte. Egress fees can make cloud bills unpredictable and make switching providers expensive. While major providers began waiving fees for customers leaving entirely in 2024, everyday egress charges still apply.
Cloud egress fees, explained at three levels
At home
Egress fees are like a storage unit that lets you move boxes in for free but charges for every box you take out.
At work
Egress fees can significantly increase cloud costs for businesses that move or share lots of data.
At home
Consumer cloud storage plans usually don't charge egress fees, but some cheap backup services charge to restore large amounts of data.
At work
Egress applies to internet downloads, transfers between regions, and sometimes between zones. Content delivery networks and caching can reduce egress costs.
At home
Before choosing a cheap backup service, check what a full restore costs. In my opinion, a backup you can't afford to restore isn't much of a backup.
At work
Model egress in cost estimates, keep chatty systems in the same region, use CDNs, monitor transfer costs by service, and negotiate egress terms or use providers with free egress for data-heavy workloads.
Real-world examples
At home
Thomas chose a cheap cloud backup service for his photos. He later learned restoring everything would cost more than a year of storage.
At work
Fatima manages cloud costs for a Halifax video production company. Moving video delivery to a CDN with low egress costs cut their monthly bill by a third.
How it compares
| feature | Cloud egress fees | Ingress |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | Data leaving the cloud | Data entering the cloud |
| Typical cost | Charged per GB | Usually free |
| Impact | Can be large | Minimal |
| Lock-in effect | Increases | None |
Getting data in is free. Getting it out costs money.
For analysts
In cloud business cases, I'd model data flows, not just storage and computing. Egress is the line item most often missing from early estimates.
History & origin
Cloud providers have charged for outbound data transfer since the early days of AWS in 2006, while inbound transfer was typically free. Critics argued this created lock-in, and Cloudflare publicly campaigned against high egress fees, launching its R2 storage with no egress fees in 2022. Regulators took notice: the UK's Competition and Markets Authority investigated cloud competition from 2023, and the EU Data Act, which began applying in September 2025, required providers to phase out switching charges. Google announced in January 2024 that it would waive egress fees for customers moving to another provider, and AWS and Microsoft followed in March 2024, with conditions. In my view, egress fees are the cloud's equivalent of a hotel minibar: easy to ignore until the bill arrives.