Cloud switching charges, as the Data Act defines them, are any charges a provider of data processing services imposes on a customer for the steps the Regulation requires to switch to another provider or to on-premises infrastructure, data egress charges included, but not standard service fees or early termination penalties. Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 allows only reduced switching charges, no higher than the costs directly linked to the switch, until 12 January 2027, and bars them after that date. The three large providers also offer free data transfer to customers who leave, each on request and on its own conditions. This page describes the text of the Regulation and the providers' documentation; how either applies to a given contract is for your legal adviser to judge.
How it works
Chapter VI of the Regulation, Articles 23 to 31, governs switching between data processing services: cloud and edge services that give on-demand network access to a shared pool of computing resources provisioned and released quickly. Article 2 defines switching in point 34; data egress charges in point 35, as data transfer fees for extracting the customer's data over the network to another provider or to on-premises infrastructure; switching charges in point 36; and exportable data in point 38, which includes metadata generated by the customer's use of the service. The dates as EUR-Lex and the Commission give them:
| Date | What the text sets |
|---|---|
| 11 January 2024 | entry into force; start of the period in which providers may impose reduced switching charges (Art. 29(2)) |
| 12 September 2025 | the Regulation applies (Art. 50) |
| until 12 January 2027 | reduced switching charges no higher than the costs directly linked to the switch (Art. 29(3)) |
| from 12 January 2027 | no switching charges for the switching process (Art. 29(1)) |
Which charges providers have to disclose before a contract is signed (Art. 29(4)) is a review item in cost in architecture and procurement reviews; where switching a service is highly complex or costly, they also have to say so (Art. 29(5)). For services used in parallel, Article 34 allows data egress charges only to pass on the egress costs incurred. Article 31 exempts services mostly custom-built for one customer and not offered at broad commercial scale from Article 29 among others, and non-production versions for testing and evaluation over a limited period from the whole chapter. A Commission proposal to amend the Data Act, COM(2025) 837 (the Digital Omnibus), was still ongoing on EUR-Lex on 2026-10-16.
What the contract must contain
Article 25 requires the switching terms in a written contract made available before signing. Its notice period, transitional period, retrieval period and list of portable data are set out as procurement checks in cloud procurement: routes, contracts and renewals. Three further points shape the cost of a move: the contract stays in force during the transitional period, while the providers' programmes exclude standard charges; a provider that cannot technically meet the 30 days has 14 working days to justify that and name an alternative of at most seven months; and the customer may extend the transitional period once. After the retrieval period the contract has to guarantee full erasure of the exportable data.
What the providers offer
The providers' documentation as read on 2026-10-16:
| AWS | Azure | Google Cloud | |
|---|---|---|---|
| On exit | free data transfer to the internet when all data, or all data of one service, moves off | free egress over the internet when leaving Azure | free data transfer when all use of a service ends |
| Request | a support request, from the management account under AWS Organizations, at least two months before the start; EU customers under the AWS EU Data Act Addendum | a support request with subscription or enrolment ID, start date and data volume | an Exit Notice; after 14 days, 30 days to start the migration, then at least 30 days of migration and a Completion Notice |
| Credit | a temporary credit in advance, for data transfer out only | an invoice-level credit after all subscriptions are cancelled, for at most 60 days of egress | a credit on the final invoice after the Data Recovery Period |
| Not included | CloudFront, Direct Connect, Snow Family, Global Accelerator, standard charges | ExpressRoute, VPN, Azure Front Door, CDN, standard charges | products outside the data portability list, transfers not over the internet |
| Other transfer offers | reduced transfer rates for eligible use cases, on request for customers under the EU Data Act Addendum | at-cost transfer during parallel use for organisations billed in the EEA, EFTA or the United Kingdom | Data Transfer Essentials for European customers' parallel use, offered at no charge initially |
AWS and Microsoft reserve the right to change their programmes; Google says it will announce in advance if Data Transfer Essentials becomes a billed service.
What it means for your cost
The Data Act and the programmes cover the charges for the switch itself, not the cost of a move as a whole. What remains is normal usage in both environments during the notice and transitional periods, the migration work, the destination platform, any contractual consequence of ending early, and every data transfer that is not part of the switch, such as traffic to users or through a CDN. Running commitments follow their own terms (exchange, cancellation and expiry of commitments); AWS advises customers with a negotiated commitment to talk to their account team before moving.
In billing data, the egress of a switch first appears as ordinary data transfer at the usual rate (data transfer and egress). The credit arrives at a different point at each provider: at AWS in advance and against data transfer only, at Azure after all subscriptions are cancelled, at Google on the final invoice. At Azure and Google, monthly reports therefore show cost in the month of the move that is offset only later; how charge and credit are booked is for your tax adviser or auditor. Planning a switch before 2027 is covered in the dated article EU Data Act: plan cloud switching costs before 2027.
Where it goes wrong
- All egress assumed free. Symptom: transfer charges remain on the invoice after the switch. Cause: the programmes cover only the egress of the move, not traffic to users, not the excluded services and not a partial move while a service stays in use.
- The request made late or not at all. Symptom: no credit arrives. Cause: AWS requires the request at least two months ahead and the start only after approval, Google an Exit Notice before any migration expected to earn a credit, Azure advance notice.
- Termination terms overlooked. Symptom: commitment payments or penalties continue after the switch. Cause: under Article 2, early termination penalties are not switching charges; whether a clause is permitted is for your legal adviser.
- The credit in the wrong month. Symptom: the month of the move shows a cost peak, a later month an unexplained reduction. Cause: charge and credit fall into different billing periods.
- Billing history sought only after the switch. Symptom: months are missing for the before-and-after comparison. Cause: the programmes require deleted data, closed accounts or cancelled subscriptions; how far history and exports reach is covered in history of billing data.
Sources
Read on 2026-10-16. EUR-Lex Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 (Data Act), document information for the Regulation and procedure 2025/0360/COD; European Commission Data Act explained; AWS Amazon EC2 FAQs, Free Data Transfer Out Program for Switching Customers and Global Network FAQs; Microsoft cancel your Azure subscription and data transfer fees between Azure and an external endpoint; Google Cloud free data transfer when exiting Google Cloud and Data Transfer Essentials.