What happens when my Amazon EC2 Reserved Instance expires?

Resolution

Instances are never shut down or terminated because an Amazon EC2 Reserved Instance (RI) expires.

However, when an RI expires, you might notice a change in the pricing of one or more of your instances. This is because any instances that were covered by the RI pricing benefit are now billed at the on-demand price.

You can set reservation expiration alerts to remind you when your RIs are about to expire. These alerts don't automatically renew or purchase RIs for you. To renew your Amazon EC2 RI automatically, you can queue an RI purchase for the date and time that your existing RI expires. For more information, see Can I schedule my EC2 Reserved Instance to renew automatically?

If you want to continue receiving the pricing benefit, you must purchase an identical RI.

1. Open the Amazon EC2 console.
2. Choose Reserved Instances from the navigation bar.
3. Select the expired RI from the list. Note: If you don't see the RI, check that your console is set to the correct AWS Region.
4. Open Actions and then select Purchase More Like These.
5. Select your preferred RI, and then choose Add to cart.
6. Choose View cart.
7. Confirm that you've added the correct RI to your cart, and then choose Purchase.

Related information

Why is my Reserved Instance showing as "Retired" in the console?