What happened
The EU Data Act (Regulation (EU) 2023/2854), applicable since 12 September 2025, requires providers of cloud data-processing services to remove switching charges — explicitly including data-egress (data-transit) fees — from 12 January 2027. During the transitional period from 11 January 2024 to 12 January 2027, providers may charge only the costs they actually incur for switching and egress. Ahead of the rules, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud already waived egress fees for customers performing a full exit in 2024, though with conditions — for example, AWS excludes services such as CloudFront and Direct Connect, and Azure requires cancelling all subscriptions.
Why it matters
Egress pricing is the load-bearing wall of cloud lock-in: it is why data has 'gravity' and why multi-cloud and exit plans so often stay on paper. Removing switching and egress charges for EU customers changes that calculus — it lowers the cost of leaving, which changes the leverage in every renewal and the seriousness of every exit strategy.
This is an architecture and procurement signal, not just a legal one. The Staff move is to treat 'we could actually leave' as a design input again: measure your real data gravity, keep provider-specific coupling (proprietary services, data formats) visible and bounded, and read the contract — the free-exit and reduced-charge programs come with conditions and excluded services, so 'no egress fees' rarely means zero in practice.
How do cloud data-egress fees create lock-in, and how would you design a system to keep a future exit or multi-cloud strategy realistic?
Probes data gravity, provider coupling, and cost-aware architecture.