If you want to know how to get started with Oracle Cloud Always Free, the short answer is this: create an account with a credit or debit card for identity verification, pick your home region, and create an Arm Ampere A1 instance shaped to 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of memory — the current Always Free ceiling. Even after Oracle halved that allocation on June 15, 2026, with no public announcement, it remains the most generous always-free VM tier any major cloud provider offers. This guide explains the signup, the full resource list, and the gotchas.
How This Guide Was Built
This guide is built from Oracle’s official documentation and two independent reports of the June 2026 change — we did not run the tool hands-on. We verified the Always Free limits, card rules, first-instance steps, and idle-reclamation thresholds against Oracle’s own pages. Last verified: September 2026.
What Does the Oracle Cloud Free Tier Actually Include?
The Oracle Cloud Free Tier includes two account tiers: a Free Trial with US$300 in cloud credit valid for up to 30 days, and Always Free resources that stay available for unlimited time in the same account, per the Oracle Cloud Free Tier page. If you do nothing after the 30-day trial ends, you keep your Always Free services.
Always Free compute is the headline. You get up to two AMD micro instances (VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro), each with 1/8th of an OCPU, 1 GB of RAM, one public IP, and up to 50 Mbps of network bandwidth. You also get Arm Ampere A1 capacity (VM.Standard.A1.Flex) — the first 1,500 OCPU hours and 9,000 GB hours per month for free, which for Always Free tenancies equals 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of memory across one or two instances, according to the Oracle Always Free Resources documentation.
The rest of the Always Free list:
- Block Volume: 200 GB total (boot plus block combined), plus 5 volume backups. Each instance automatically gets a 50 GB boot volume.
- Object and Archive Storage: 20 GB combined across Standard, Infrequent Access, and Archive, plus 50,000 Object Storage API requests per month.
- Outbound data transfer: 10 TB per month.
- Load Balancing: one Always Free Flexible Load Balancer (min and max bandwidth 10 Mbps), plus one Network Load Balancer.
- Autonomous AI Database: two instances, each 1 OCPU (not scalable), 20 GB storage (not scalable), max 20 simultaneous sessions, serverless.
- MySQL HeatWave: one standalone single-node DB system, 50 GB storage.
- NoSQL Database (Phoenix region only): 133M reads per month, 133M writes per month, 3 tables at 25 GB each.
- Vault: 150 Always Free secrets.
- Notifications: 1M HTTPS notifications per month, 1,000 email notifications per month.
- Infrastructure certificates: 5 certificate authorities and 150 certificates.
How to Get Started with Oracle Cloud Always Free?
To get started with Oracle Cloud Always Free, confirm you meet the signup requirements, pick a home region, then create your instances — Always Free compute must be created in your home region, and a credit or debit card is required for identity verification, per the Oracle Cloud Free Tier page.
1. Check the signup requirements. You need a credit card or debit card that functions like a credit card. PIN debit, virtual, single-use, and prepaid cards are not accepted. Oracle may place a temporary authorization hold to validate the card; your bank removes it in 3-5 days and it is not a charge. One free account per person — creating multiple free accounts is prohibited. The $300 credit is available in select countries, and the exact regions offered can differ at signup.
2. Choose your home region. This matters more than it looks. Always Free compute must be created in your home region, and you cannot move it later without rebuilding. Pick a region close to your users. If you want the NoSQL Database, note it is available in the Phoenix region only.
3. Create the Ampere A1 instance. Choose VM.Standard.A1.Flex and set the shape to 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of memory — the current Always Free ceiling. If you see an “out of host capacity” error, that is a temporary lack of Always Free shapes in your home region. Try a different availability domain, wait and retry, or upgrade to Pay As You Go. The A1 shape is available in any availability domain except South Korea North (Chuncheon).
4. Create the AMD Micro instances. If you want two small always-on boxes rather than one larger Arm machine, spin up up to two VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro instances. Note the Micro shape is only available in one availability domain, so you have less placement flexibility than with A1.
5. Optional: spin up an Always Free Autonomous AI Database. You get two instances, serverless, at 1 OCPU and 20 GB storage each, capped at 20 simultaneous sessions. Neither the OCPU nor the storage is scalable on the free tier.
Oracle Cloud Free Tier Gotchas You Need to Know
The biggest Oracle Cloud Free Tier gotchas are idle reclamation, out-of-host-capacity errors, the home-region-only rule, card restrictions, the 30-day idle account rule, and the June 2026 A1 halving, which cut the free Arm allocation from 4 OCPUs and 24 GB to 2 OCPUs and 12 GB, as reported by InfoQ and Linuxiac.
- Idle reclamation. Oracle may reclaim idle Always Free compute instances. An instance is deemed idle if, over a 7-day period, its 95th-percentile CPU utilization is under 20%, network utilization is under 20%, and — for A1 shapes only — memory utilization is under 20%. A quiet hobby box can trip all three.
- Out of host capacity. This error means no Always Free shapes are free right now in your home region. Try another availability domain, wait, or upgrade to Pay As You Go.
- Home region only. Always Free compute must live in your home region. Choose carefully at signup.
- Card restrictions. PIN debit, virtual, single-use, and prepaid cards are rejected. The temporary hold is not a charge.
- 30-day idle accounts. Accounts left idle for 30 days or more may be deemed abandoned and become eligible for suspension or termination.
- The June 2026 halving. Oracle made no public announcement, and free-tier A1 instances were shut down until users edited their shapes down to the new limits.
Where Does the Free Tier End and Paid Begin?
The boundary is simple: you pay only when you provision a resource outside the Always Free limits, per the Always Free resources documentation. Always Free resources stay uncharged even after you upgrade to Pay As You Go. The US$300 trial credit covers eligible services for up to 30 days.
Upgrading to Pay As You Go does not retroactively charge resources that stay within the Always Free list — it mainly improves your odds of getting capacity, and anything beyond the free list bills at standard rates.
FAQ
Short answers to the questions beginners ask most about Oracle Cloud Always Free: running both VM shapes at once, what survives the trial, and the capacity error everyone hits. Each answer links to Oracle’s own documentation.
Can I run the AMD Micro and Arm A1 instances at the same time?
Yes. The two AMD micro instances and the Arm Ampere A1 allocation are separate Always Free entitlements, so you can run both at once — up to two 1 GB micro VMs plus 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of Arm memory in the same tenancy, per the Always Free resources documentation.
What happens to my Always Free resources after the 30-day trial ends?
Nothing, provided you stay within the Always Free limits. The Free Trial credit expires after 30 days, but Always Free resources remain available for unlimited time in the same account, per the Oracle Cloud Free Tier page — if you do nothing, you keep your services.
Why am I getting an out of host capacity error?
The error means there is a temporary lack of Always Free shapes in your home region, per Oracle’s documentation. Try a different availability domain, wait and retry later, or upgrade to Pay As You Go. For A1, remember South Korea North (Chuncheon) is excluded.
Where to Go Next
Start with the Oracle Cloud Free Tier directory entry for the current limits in one place. If you want to compare providers before committing, our Fly.io free tier guide and Koyeb free tier guide cover two lighter-weight alternatives. For pricing context on where the free tier stops, keep Oracle’s Always Free documentation bookmarked.