If you renew or renegotiate a cloud or SaaS contract in the next few months, one date matters more than most: 12 January 2027. From then on, the EU Data Act (Regulation (EU) 2023/2854) bans the charges a provider may now still pass on to a customer who leaves, including the data egress fee. The question is what to get into the contract and exit plan now, and whether waiting for that date changes anything.
This is not legal advice. It reads the regulation's text and the Commission's guidance, and marks interpretation.
What the regulation says
The regulation has applied since 12 September 2025 (Article 50). Chapter VI (Articles 23 to 31) covers switching between data processing services. The Commission's FAQ (version 1.4, January 2026) says the definition covers IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, with no distinction between types of SaaS that meet it. The FAQ itself says it is not the Commission's authoritative position.
Charges. Article 29 says that from 12 January 2027 providers "shall not impose any switching charges". From 11 January 2024 until then they may impose reduced charges, which may not exceed the costs they incur that are directly linked to the switching process. Article 2 defines switching charges as charges other than standard service fees or early termination penalties, imposed for the actions the regulation mandates for switching, including data egress charges. Before signing, a provider must tell a prospective customer about standard fees, early termination penalties and reduced switching charges.
Time limits. Article 25 requires a written contract that sets out the switching rights. It must include a notice period of at most two months, then a transitional period of at most 30 calendar days during which the contract stays in force and the provider gives reasonable assistance and keeps the service running. If 30 days is technically unfeasible, the provider must tell the customer within 14 working days of the request, justify it and propose an alternative of at most seven months. The customer may extend the transitional period once. A retrieval period of at least 30 calendar days follows, and the contract must guarantee erasure after successful switching.
What you can take. The contract must list all categories of data and digital assets that can be ported, including at a minimum all exportable data. Exportable data is input and output data, including metadata, generated by your use of the service, excluding provider or third-party assets protected by intellectual property rights or trade secrets (Article 2). The provider may exempt categories specific to its internal functioning only through an exhaustive list, where a trade-secret risk exists, and without delaying switching (Article 25). Article 26 adds a duty to describe switching methods and formats and to point to an online register of data structures and formats.
Technical help, and its limits. Article 30 splits services in two. For infrastructure services such as servers and networks, the provider must take all reasonable measures to help you reach functional equivalence at the destination. Other providers must offer open interfaces free of charge and, absent a common specification, export all exportable data in a structured, machine-readable format. The FAQ adds that no source provider has to rebuild your service in the destination's environment, since Article 24 limits its obligations to its own services.
What does not go away
First, Article 29 removes switching charges, not the price of the service. Article 25 says the contract remains applicable during the transitional period, so standard fees for the old service continue then. Interpretation: you may also pay for a second environment while you migrate.
Second, the regulation's recital 89 says standard service fees are not switching charges and stay payable until the contract ceases. A separate sentence of the same recital says nothing in the regulation prevents fixed-duration contracts with proportionate early termination penalties. My reading, an interpretation: ending a fixed term early may still cost money even though the exit fee is gone. Check your contract's early termination terms.
Two limits. Under Article 31, services largely custom-built for one customer and not offered at broad commercial scale are exempt from some obligations, including Article 29, and test or evaluation versions are outside the chapter. The provider must say before signing which obligations do not apply. And if you keep a second provider running alongside the first rather than leaving, Article 34 still lets providers charge data egress, limited to the costs they incur. The FAQ confirms this for multi-cloud setups after January 2027.
Provider announcements, and what they are
Some providers waived exit fees before the legal deadline. These are the providers' own statements. AWS announced on 5 March 2024 that eligible customers moving all their data off AWS, or all data from a particular service, can get data transfer out to the internet waived. The customer must ask AWS Support, which reviews each request. Google Cloud announced on 12 January 2024 free network data transfer for customers migrating out of Google Cloud. Both are older than 24 months and neither is a clause in your contract, so ask for the waiver in writing for your account.
Should you wait for 12 January?
Article 29(1) bans charges "from 12 January 2027", but it does not say whether the relevant moment is when you give notice, when the transition starts, or when the provider invoices. I found no Commission guidance that answers this. The notice period alone can last two months, so a switch begun in November could run past that date. Ask each provider to state in writing which date it applies.
My advice, which is a judgement and not a rule from the regulation: do not postpone a migration that has a business reason just to save an egress fee, because the old contract keeps costing money every month you stay. Do the checklist below now, whatever date you choose.
A proposed change you should know about
The Commission's Digital Omnibus proposal of 19 November 2025 would amend Article 31. Providers could include proportionate early termination penalties in fixed-duration contracts, and some services under contracts concluded on or before 12 September 2025 would be exempt from Chapter VI except Article 29: services adapted to a customer, and PaaS or SaaS from small or mid-sized providers. The charge ban stays. The Parliament's procedure page, accessed 13 November 2026, shows the file awaiting a committee decision, with no provisional agreement. Treat it as a proposal, not as law.
Checklist for your contract and exit plan
- Find the switching clause. Is there a notice period of at most two months, a transition of 30 days or a stated longer alternative, and a retrieval period of at least 30 days?
- Ask for the list of exportable data and digital assets, and for the formats and the register Article 26 refers to.
- Ask the provider to state in writing what it charges for switching today and which date ends those charges.
- Find any early termination penalty and the contract end date, and decide whether leaving before it is worth that cost.
- Check whether your service is custom-built or a test version, which changes what applies, and ask who does the rebuild; the source provider is not required to.
Your next step
Put one exit rehearsal on the calendar: export a copy of your data from your most critical cloud or SaaS service, load it somewhere else and time it. The contract tells you what you may demand; only a rehearsal shows whether the export is usable. Our backup and restore test shows how to plan such a test, and the low-code exit checklist how to stage an exit. If an AI vendor holds your data, see questions to ask before signing. For help turning the result into an exit plan, our AI consulting service is where to begin.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Data Act), 2023, Articles 2, 24 to 26, 29 to 31, 34 and 50, recitals 87 to 99, accessed 13 November 2026: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32023R2854
- European Commission, "Frequently Asked Questions, Data Act", version 1.4, 22 January 2026 (guidance, not the Commission's official position), questions 52 to 58b: https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/108144
- European Commission, Digital Omnibus proposal, COM(2025) 837, 19 November 2025, point 15 (amending Article 31 of the Data Act): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52025PC0837
- European Parliament Legislative Observatory, procedure 2025/0360(COD), status as read on 13 November 2026: https://oeil.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/en/procedure-file?reference=2025/0360%28COD%29
- Amazon Web Services, "Free data transfer out to internet when moving out of AWS", 5 March 2024 (provider statement; page carries later update notes): https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/free-data-transfer-out-to-internet-when-moving-out-of-aws/
- Google Cloud, "Eliminating data transfer fees when migrating off Google Cloud", 12 January 2024 (provider statement): https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/networking/eliminating-data-transfer-fees-when-migrating-off-google-cloud
