Are AWS credits transferable?
Short answer: no, not as a standalone asset. What AWS's terms restrict, the arrangements people use instead, and where each one breaks.
Short answer: no. AWS promotional credits are applied to a specific AWS account and the AWS Promotional Credit Terms and Conditions restrict transfer and resale. There is no supported button, API call or support ticket that moves a credit balance from your account to someone else's.
That is the answer most people are looking for, so it goes first. The rest of this page covers why, what the terms actually say, and what people do instead — because "not transferable" and "nothing can be done" are not the same statement.
Why credits are not transferable
A credit is not a voucher or a bearer instrument. It is a billing adjustment attached to an account, and it behaves like one:
- It applies automatically. Credits are consumed against eligible usage as that usage is incurred. You cannot hold a credit back, direct it at a particular invoice, or hand it to someone to redeem later.
- It is scoped. Most credits apply only to certain services, and many exclude AWS Marketplace purchases, Reserved Instance upfront fees and Savings Plans commitments.
- It has an expiry. The balance lapses on a date, whether or not anyone consumed it.
Put together, there is nothing detachable to transfer. The credit only has meaning in the context of the account it sits on and the usage that account generates.
What the terms restrict
Two documents govern this, and both are worth five minutes of your time:
- The AWS Promotional Credit Terms and Conditions, which cover the credits themselves and restrict transfer and resale.
- The AWS Customer Agreement, which governs your account and what you may do with it.
The practical points:
| What people assume | What actually applies |
|---|---|
| Credits belong to me | Credits are applied to an account, and are restricted from transfer or resale |
| I can sell the credit code | There is no portable code for promotional credits to sell |
| A screenshot proves I can sell | A balance display proves a balance was displayed, nothing more |
| If AWS objects, we renegotiate | AWS can withdraw credits it concludes were used against its terms |
That last row is the one that costs people money, and it is worth sitting with. If AWS voids a balance after a deal, it is the buyer holding nothing — which is exactly why buyers discount heavily for this risk, and why anyone promising you a clean transfer is either uninformed or not dealing straight with you.
What people do instead
Because the credit itself cannot move, real transactions restructure around the account rather than the credit:
- Account transfer. The buyer takes over the AWS account that holds the credits, with the provider's knowledge where the agreement requires it. This is the cleanest route conceptually and the most involved in practice — the account carries everything else too, including its history, its resources and its liabilities.
- Managed spend. The buyer runs workloads through your account under a written agreement and pays you a share of what gets consumed. Nothing transfers; the buyer is effectively buying discounted compute. This is the most common shape, and the one where a written agreement matters most.
- Negotiated reassignment. For large enterprise balances, occasionally the provider itself will facilitate something. If your balance is big enough for this to be plausible, your AWS account manager is a far better first call than any broker.
Each of these is a contractual arrangement between two parties, and whether it is permitted depends on your agreement with AWS. None of them is a credit transfer, and describing them as one is how people talk themselves into trouble.
Where each arrangement breaks
Worth knowing before you pick one:
- Account transfer breaks when the account holds anything the seller cannot cleanly hand over — production data, other customers' data, domain ownership, IAM entanglement with other systems.
- Managed spend breaks when nobody wrote down what happens if access stops halfway through, or when the seller discovers they are now liable for a stranger's usage on their own account.
- Anything involving shared credentials breaks immediately and should be refused outright. Handing over root access or access keys gives another party the ability to act as you, with no ceiling and no audit trail you control.
If you are sitting on a balance
Check three things before you do anything else, all visible in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console under Credits: the remaining balance per credit line, the expiry date on each line separately, and the services each one applies to. A single headline figure frequently hides the fact that most of it expires next month or only covers EC2.
Then read your own agreement. If after that you still want an honest read on whether there is a permitted route, submit the details and a person will come back to you within 24–48 hours — including telling you when the answer is no, which it often is.
Related reading
- Sell unused AWS credits — what affects value, and what to check first
- When do cloud and AI credits expire? — where to find the date on each platform
- How to value unused cloud credits — the factors that actually move the number
- How we verify listings — what our review does and does not establish