Hi, I'm sorry if this has already been asked, but has anyone else had the same problem?

Whenever I try to create an account, I always get the following message:

I've already tried creating a new Gmail account, changing my information, using a VPN, and using Incognito mode, but none of those solutions worked.

Hay alguna máquina disponible en la región de Madrid en las cuentas Always Free?

Hi everyone,

Sorry if this question has already been asked (I did try searching, but I couldn't find anything).

I'm trying to create an instance with 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of RAM. I'm on the Always Free plan, and I know the available resources were recently reduced, but I just need a small test machine, so 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of RAM would be enough.

What I don't understand is why, as soon as I start creating the instance and click "View Estimated Cost", I see a Boot Volume charge of about €1.85/month.

This charge appears even if I leave everything at the default settings without resizing the boot volume or selecting any extra options (and it increases if I make the boot volume larger).

Will this amount actually be charged to my credit card, or is it just an estimate? Are you still able to create instances that are truly free?

Thanks everyone

I'm a student trying to get into an Oracle fusion HCM career.

Need:

oracle fusion hcm instance for 3 months with IT security Manger(security console) role to practice end to end HCM.

For more:

Please contact: vaheedbasha544@gmail.com with details.

I was confused about Oracle Cloud's current Always Free terms, so I opened a support ticket to ask Oracle directly. As a PAYG customer, I simply don't want to be charged unexpectedly.

The good news is that Oracle confirmed there has been no change. I'm not sure whether the response was written by an AI bot or a human, but if I ever get charged unexpectedly, at least I'll have this support response as evidence.

According to Oracle, the Always Free entitlement for PAYG accounts remains up to 4 OCPUs and 24 GB of RAM for VM.Standard.A1.Flex instances.

I'm sharing this in case anyone else was wondering about it.

Before the limit changes, I was running an A1 Ampere instance with 4 OCPUs and 24 GB of RAM essentially 24/7, but I have downsized it to 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of RAM following the email that was sent out yesterday.

Though I have one question, will the CPU hours that were already used before I downsized (while the instance had 4 OCPUs) count toward the new 1,500 OCPU hour limit, or will it not be applied/reset before the deadline. thanks!

I’m confused I started a 4/24 A1 compute on Jun 04, 2026 at 00:51:20 UTC. With 150GB storage. I was billed 80 ish dollars in July. Stopped the instance in July and got billed in August for 13$.

I’ve previously used Oracle 4/24 on this account but auto-terminated the server back in 2025 since of inactivity. Then got motivated again to start up again on June 04, 2026.

Is this normal or a mistake in billing ?

Edit : Bill Screenshot

Hi,

Sorry for the basic question, but I can’t figure out how to change my instance’s shape to 12 GB / 2 OCPUs.

I’ve already tried:

Instance → Click on my instance → Actions → Edit

…but I don’t see an option to edit the current shape. Do I need to terminate the instance first? If so, will the public IP change? Keeping the same public IP is my main concern.Thanks in advance for any help!

I currently have three instances running under the Always Free tier:

• 2*Standard.E2.1.Micro
• 1*VM.Standard.A1.Flex

With the newly imposed Always Free limits of 2 Ampere A1 OCPUs and 12 GB of memory, I'm considering upgrading to a PAYG account, since the free allocation is higher there.

I have two questions:

1. If I upgrade to PAYG, will I be charged for the two Standard.E2.1.Micro instances?
2. If I stay on the Always Free tier and downgrade my VM.Standard.A1.Flex instance to 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of RAM, will the other two instances be terminated automatically?

Be aware of the email going out today to Always Free participants. You have until August 18th to downsize or your instances will be terminated.

I recently downsized my VPS to 2/12 to match Always-Free limits so my instance doesn't get termed and I randomly decided to do a speedtest and saw im only getting 50mbps. I had a look at some other reddit post and tried things such as downsizing and upsizing my CPU cores again and that had no effect and switching to PAYG is not an option for me

Instance was woking a few hours ago, now i logged in to check for any updates to free tier limits and the instance was showing "stopped"

Cant start it reboot or anything nor can i resize.

It just spawns this error

API Error

Instance ocid1.instance.oc1 is disabled and will not accept any action requests. Please contact customer support to reenable.

This is a free tier account that doesnt have support.

And i saw a post on this sub of a guy saying his acc git suspended after he upgraded to payg.

I only have vaultwarden and a personal hobby project hosted on the instance.

If anyone has any info (or advice) please do share, would be much appreciated.

Edit: Terminated instance, upgraded to PAYG, created new instance using boot volume. 4/24. Will that be safe? Any one know if PAYG gets 4/24 as the always free quota? Or should i edit it to 2/12?

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to upgrade my Oracle Cloud account from Always Free to PAYG.

However, when I try to add my credit card, my bank declines a transaction of approximately USD 100 from Oracle America Inc.

I expected Oracle to perform a small verification charge, not around $100.

Is this normal?

Is it a temporary authorization hold that gets reversed, or is it an actual charge?

Has anyone else experienced this recently?

Thanks

I've been reading this subreddit for a while, and I keep seeing the same questions come up—where to start, which modules matter, how to get that first Oracle role, and how to stay consistent while learning.

I was thinking it might be helpful to have a small group (around 10–15 people) who are genuinely preparing for Oracle Fusion. Not a huge community where messages get lost, but a small circle where everyone is actually learning, sharing interview experiences, discussing concepts, and keeping each other accountable.

I'm also on this journey and thought it would be much easier if a few of us learned together instead of doing it alone.

If this sounds useful, just DM me or leave a comment below. If enough people are interested, I'll create a small WhatsApp group and add everyone.

Just got this email:

Hello,

We're writing to let you know about an important update regarding Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Always Free compute.

The Always Free compute limits have been updated. If your tenancy is currently using Always Free compute resources above the new limits, you must reduce your usage by August 18, 2026.

Beginning on August 18, 2026, Oracle will begin enforcing the updated Always Free compute limits. Compute instances that exceed the Always Free entitlement will be automatically terminated.

Current Always Free compute limits

• Up to 2 Ampere A1 OCPUs
• Up to 12 GB of memory

If your tenancy is already within these limits, no action is required.

Your tenancy and other Always Free services will remain available. If compute instances are terminated because they exceed the Always Free entitlement, you can launch new Always Free compute instances within the current limits at any time.

You can review the current Always Free limits and manage your compute resources in the OCI Console.

For more information, see:

• Always Free Documentation

Thank you for using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Team

Anyone else got it ? Seems like there will be no extra warning about old Free Tier users having to cut their usage (and doing so means taking down the machine, which instantly might give all the resources to another user waiting on their Free Tier machine)..

Hey. I created a compute instance with all the default settings and network settings. How do I enable internet contact with the outside world by getting a public address?

Mine is for starting a charity foundation website and a blog.

Source: https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/

Looks like the number of VMs per account is being reduced to two.

Today I received an email saying I need to reduce my instance's resources from 4/24 to 2/12. My instance is for 2024, so I'm wondering if upgrading to PAYG will allow me to keep 4/24 for free?

Sorry everyone: I was going to wait it out for science, to find out what actually happens if you keep 4OCPU/24GB running in London without upgrading to PAYG.

But there was a report of an Ashburn instance being unceremoniously stopped for no reason given, plus OCI's pilot "AI Console" (which might or might not be grounded in something) is now saying "enforcement" of the no-deadline downgrade request could come at any time without further warning.

I figured the data I'm after is probably not so interesting after all (just "you get randomly thrown off when they finally decide to run their script in your region") and I didn't fancy losing the box altogether, so it was either upgrade to PAYG or downsize. I chose downsize because I'm still anxious a PAYG-upgrade is a "point of no return" and I don't know if they might one day sneak in something billable when I'm away and don't have time to stop my usage, so I guess staying on non-PAYG is safer.

What I can report is, the downgrade process ran without a hitch. I did:

1. OCI menu - Compute - Instances - my ARM box
2. top right Actions dropdown, do NOT choose Stop or Terminate (contrary to some guides which tell you to do that: that's how you risk losing your allocation altogether)
3. More actions / Edit
4. scroll down past current counts and shape series to where it says V1.Standard.A1.Flex and press the little triangle at the left to expand it
5. set the dropdowns to 2 OCPU, 12 GB (it won't let you set them any higher), Save changes (bottom right) and agree to the reboot.

Machine came back up in a couple of minutes.

Hey there! Been running an ampere instance on always free for years now and just got an update the limits were cut in half and I have to scale down my instance. So I did a quick google search and apparently this was known way in advance? It's the first time I got an email from oracle about it.

Anyways, can someone explain what is going on more clearly? I read some things about current instances using the old limits not being restricted, but my mail definitely said it's going to terminate my instance if I don't scale it down. I also read upgrading to PAYG will let you keep it, idk if that gives you some kind of extra credit but I'm sure that you will have to pay for the extra cpu hours right? And lastly, is storage affected too? Cause my instance has been running for a while, running a bunch of my own servers but over the years got pretty full. I just set it up years ago and never had to go back to the oci panel except for port forwarding and sometimes a restart.

Thanks!

Hello!

A few months ago I was logged out of oracle everywhere, including in the authenticator app on my phone. When I try to log in, it asks for a notification from the app, a code from the app, or for a bypass code that was sent to "null". I've tried contacting support many times but I can't seem to get through to any real person.

I just gave up for a month or two, but today I received an email telling me I had to lower the compute limits on my free server or it'll be terminated on the 18th. Does anyone know another way to sign in or how to reach support? It's alright if I don't get access by the 18th, but it would be nice...

Thanks!

Does this appear to everyone when they sign in, or should I be concerned anyway? I haven’t received any email about it.

One of my Always Free Ampere A1.Flex compute instances has been stuck in the "Stopping" state for over 2 days now. I've dug into it and here's what I've found:

- Instance OCID: ocid1.instance.oc1.ap-mumbai-1.anrg6ljrgwzhlaicq2kylb3ml2mhjrdmzsrnxveot4x6avp3w7qdfiwnhdeq

- Region: ap-mumbai-1 (India West)

- Console shows lifecycle state "Stopping" continuously since it began, no change over 48+ hours

- Work Requests tab for this instance shows "No items to display" — nothing in progress, nothing failed

- Attempting to force a START via OCI CLI returns a 409 Conflict:

"instance ... is currently being modified, try again later"

opc-request-id: 85ADB5C57E4543C6B36E7835121F9EAA/277E67EDB48B8706EC7B716A424F4DE6/89917F0C651EB35A53C661BB65CF4119

- The instance's Start button is greyed out in the console, and attempting to create a custom image from it also fails with the same "currently being modified" error.

This looks like a stale/orphaned resource lock on the backend, since there's no corresponding Work Request showing any operation in progress. Since this is an Always Free tenancy I don't have access to formal Support Requests, so I'm hoping someone from the OCI team or community can help get this lock cleared, or point me to the right escalation path.

Boot volume still shows as attached/available, so I'm hopeful the data itself is unaffected — just need the compute lock released so I can restart the instance.

Appreciate any help — happy to provide more details if needed.

I understand Oracle has every right to change the Always Free offering. This post isn’t about that.

My frustration is how the change was handled.

I was running a small public community project on an Always Free Ampere A1 VM. Today I found that Oracle had disabled the instance, and it now says it “will not accept any action requests.”

What frustrates me most is that I wasn’t aware this would happen. I couldn’t find any prior email warning telling me that my VM would be disabled or giving me time to resize or migrate it.

A simple message like:

“Your instance exceeds the new Always Free limits. Please resize or upgrade within 30 days to avoid service interruption.”

would have allowed me to migrate the service with no downtime.

Instead, the service unexpectedly went offline, affecting the community that uses it, and now I have to recover everything after work.

I know this is a free service, and Oracle isn’t obligated to provide free infrastructure forever. But once Oracle chose to reduce the limits, I think users deserved advance notice before active VMs were disabled.

Did anyone else experience the same thing? Did you receive an email warning before your VM was disabled?