How To Delete An AWS Account

If you no longer wish to use your AWS account or have completed all your AWS activities, it’s recommended that you close the account if you no longer need it. In this comprehensive article, I’ll walk you through the entire process of deleting your AWS account.

How to delete an AWS account

Why You Might Want to Delete Your AWS Account

Before diving into the deletion process, let’s consider some common reasons you might be looking to close your AWS account:

Consolidating multiple AWS accounts into a single organization
Transitioning to another cloud provider like Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud
Ending a project that was using dedicated AWS resources
Stopping recurring charges for services you no longer need
Eliminating unused accounts to improve security posture

Whatever your reason, it’s essential to approach account deletion methodically to avoid data loss or unexpected complications.

Important Considerations Before Deletion

Before hitting delete, there are key steps to take first to prevent significant issues. AWS account deletion is permanent and irreversible after a short recovery window. Here’s what you need to know:

Data Preservation Concerns

Once you close your account, all your AWS resources will be terminated, and data will be deleted. This includes:

EC2 instances and their associated volumes
S3 buckets and stored objects
RDS databases and their backups
Lambda functions and their configurations
CloudFormation stacks and deployed resources

If you have any data that needs to be preserved, it must be backed up before proceeding with account closure.

Financial Implications

Closing your account doesn’t automatically forgive outstanding balances. You’ll still need to:

Pay any remaining balance on your account
Ensure all billing disputes are resolved
Understand that you might receive a final bill after closure for any usage up to the closure date

Recovery Period and Limitations

AWS provides a recovery period during which you can reopen your account if needed. However, there are limitations:

The recovery window is limited (typically 90 days)
Some services and data may not be recoverable
Your account number and settings will be preserved if recovered within this window

Pre-Deletion Checklist: Essential Steps

Before starting the deletion process, follow this checklist to ensure you’ve covered all critical preparation steps:

1. Backup Critical Data

First and foremost, you need to preserve any critical data stored in your AWS environment:

S3 Buckets: Download all important objects or transfer them to another storage solution
Databases: Export your database contents to local storage or another provider
EC2 Configurations: Document any custom configurations, AMIs, or important setup details
Application Code: Ensure all code deployed to AWS services is backed up elsewhere
CloudFormation Templates: Save your infrastructure-as-code templates for future reference

2. Terminate All Running Resources

You’ll need to clean up all resources before closing your account. AWS won’t let you close an account with active resources, so you’ll need to:

Stop and terminate all EC2 instances
Delete all S3 buckets and their contents
Remove all Lambda functions
Terminate RDS instances and delete snapshots
Delete Elastic IPs, Load Balancers, and other networking resources
Remove IAM users, roles, and policies
Delete CloudWatch logs and alarms

For large or complex environments, this can be a time-consuming process. Consider using AWS Config or CloudFormation stack deletion to systematically identify and remove resources.

3. Address Billing Matters

Make sure your financial affairs are in order:

Pay any outstanding balance on your account
Review and download past invoices for your records
Cancel any active Reserved Instances or Savings Plans
Update or remove payment methods if desired
Download cost and usage reports for tax or business records

Pay the remaining bills if you have any amount overdue.

Navigate to the Billing and Cost Management console.
In the Payments Due section, ensure that you select both Orders and Invoices.
Ensure you select ‘Verify and Pay’.

4. Check Organization Membership

If your account is part of an AWS Organization:

For member accounts: Contact your organization’s management account administrator to remove the account from the organization before closing.
For management accounts, you must close all member accounts before closing the management account.

Step-by-Step Guide to Delete Your AWS Account

Now that you’ve completed the preparatory steps, here’s how to actually delete your AWS account:

Method 1: Standard Account Closure Process

To delete an AWS account, follow the steps below.

Log in to your AWS Management Console
- Use the root account credentials (not an IAM user)
- If you’ve forgotten your password, use the password recovery process
Navigate to Account Settings
- Click on your account name in the top-right corner
- Select “Account” from the dropdown menu
Locate the Close Account Section
- Scroll to the bottom of the Account page
- Find the “Close Account” section
Review the Closure Information
- Read the information about account closure carefully
- Understand which services and data will be lost
- Note the date when your account will be permanently closed
Check the Confirmation Box
- Acknowledge that you understand the consequences of account closure
- Confirm that you want to proceed with closing the account
Click “Close Account”
- This initiates the account closure process
- You’ll receive a confirmation email at your root account email address

Method 2: Closing a Member Account in an AWS Organization

If your account is part of an AWS Organization as a member account,

To close the AWS account, follow the steps below.

Contact the Management Account Administrator
- Request removal from the organization
- Alternatively, the admin can close your account directly
After Removal from the Organization
- Follow the standard account closure steps above
- Note that billing responsibility transfers to your account upon removal from the organization

Method 3: Closing a Management Account

If you’re closing a management account in an AWS Organization:

Close or Remove All Member Accounts First
- Either close each member account or remove them from the organization
- A management account cannot be closed while it still has member accounts
Follow the Standard Closure Process
- Once all member accounts are addressed, follow the standard closure steps

Now, you have completed the steps to close your AWS account. You will receive a confirmation email that your AWS account has been closed successfully.

Recovery Options

According to AWS documentation, if you change your mind after closing your account:

During the Recovery Period
- Log in to your closed account within the recovery window (typically 90 days)
- You’ll see an option to reopen the account
- Some services and data may be recoverable, but not all
After the Recovery Period
- Once the recovery period ends, account closure is permanent
- You’ll need to create a new AWS account if needed

Wrapping Up

Deleting an AWS account is a significant step that requires careful planning and execution. By following the comprehensive process outlined in this article, you can ensure that your data is preserved, financial matters are resolved, and the closure process goes smoothly.

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Rajkishore

I am Rajkishore, and I am a Microsoft Certified IT Consultant. I have over 14 years of experience in Microsoft Azure and AWS, with good experience in Azure Functions, Storage, Virtual Machines, Logic Apps, PowerShell Commands, CLI Commands, Machine Learning, AI, Azure Cognitive Services, DevOps, etc. Not only that, I do have good real-time experience in designing and developing cloud-native data integrations on Azure or AWS, etc. I hope you will learn from these practical Azure tutorials. Read more.