- The EU Data Act requires companies to offer data transfer ‘at cost’
- Google Cloud removes the cost, AWS and Azure still charge
- Google wants to be seen as an openness champion
Google has scrapped data transfer fees for organizations using multicloud approaches within the European Union and UK.
The change landed just days before the EU Data Act comes into force (on September 12, 2025) – a piece of legislation designed to make it easier to access, share and use data across sectors and platforms.
Although the Act only requires companies to offer data transfer options ‘at cost’, Google went one step further by enabling this for free.
Google makes it free to transfer data in EU/UK
Google Cloud Global Risk and Compliance Senior Director Jeanette Manfra announced the change in a blog post, emphasizing the company’s commitment to interoperability, openness and multicloud strategies.
Manfra stressed that Google was the first company to offer digital sovereignty solutions for European governments, and the first to waive exit fees for customers leaving Google Cloud.
All of this from a company that trails behind AWS (32%) and Microsoft Azure (23%) in terms of market share during Q1 2025 (10% for Google Cloud).
The post also harks back to the original promise of the cloud – an ecosystem that’s “open, elastic and free from artificial lock-ins.”
Looking ahead, Google Cloud customers will need to opt in to the Data Transfer Essentials service to benefit from zero fees. Note that this is designed to work with “in-parallel” workloads only – the same organization, spread across two or more cloud providers.
Although Google’s response to the EU Data Act is late compared with hyperscaler rivals, it’s certainly the most favorable approach. Microsoft began charging fees in the EU in August, and AWS lets EU customers apply for reduced rates in certain use cases.
As such, Google has framed its response as a broader push to challenge market lock-in – a hot topic of discussion among European regulators.
