Opening an AWS account is very easy to do. AWS makes it possible to create an account with an email address and a credit card. Even better, if you’re setting up a multi-account structure, you can use the API through organizations and you really only need an email address as an input. But closing an account is slightly more difficult. While closing accounts doesn’t happen quite as often as opening new ones, it does happen. Especially if you’re trying to fail fast and have made some organizational mistakes. When you want to clean those accounts up, you’ll need to jump through a couple of small hoops to do so. This post hopes to outline how to remove an account from an AWS Organization and then close it.

Remove a Member Account from Organizations

Login to the member account that you wish to remove as the root user.

Note: You may need to reset the password if you haven’t done this already. Creating a new account from organizations does not require the password to be set.

Once logged in to the console, select the account name drop down and then select “My Account”.

Go to Payment methods and add a Credit Card. Finish filling out the Credit Card Details and contact information associated with the card.

Next, go back to the account drop down and select “My Organization”.

You can now select “Leave organization” where you’ll likely receive an error message about some steps that aren’t completed. Click the “Leave organization” button.

You’ll get a warning message asking if you’re sure you want to leave. Select the “Leave organization” link at the bottom of the warning message.

You’ll likely get a message preventing you from leaving the organization. Luckily the link at the bottom of this warning will show you the steps needed to finish setting up the member account and prep it for removal. Click the “Complete the account sign-up steps” link.

The first step is to verify your phone number. Enter your phone number and the captcha code and then click “Call me now”.

The screen will change and display a four digit number. You’ll also receive a call from AWS at the number you entered and will ask you to submit that number through your touch tone phone.

After you enter the code, the screen will change again stating that your identity has been verified. Click Continue.

After you verify the account, you’ll need to select a support plan. You can select the basic plan, which is free, if you plan to close the account.

When you’re done you’ll see a message stating that sign-in steps have been completed.

At this point you can select “Leave organization”.

Again you’ll get a warning. Select “Leave organization”.

You should get a message that the account was removed from your organization.

Close the Member Account

Go back to the Account drop down and select “My Account”.

Scroll to the bottom of that page and click the check box under “Close Account” stating that you understand the consequence of closing the account. Then click the “Close Account” button.

Verify once again that you’re ready to close the account by clicking the “Close Account” button.

You should get a message that the account we removed. You can then sign out of the account.

Summary

Removing an account seems easy enough to accomplish but I’ve seen strange issues from time to time with this process. Usually its something simple like a support plan or credit card hasn’t been added. Other times you’ll see odd messages about a waiting period such as this one. If you see something similar to this or are having issues with closing your account. Contact AWS Support. You should get a response within 24 hours even with the free plan.