Google Cloud free trial: $300, the 90-day clock and when you pay
How the Google Cloud free trial works in 2026: the $300 credit, the card hold, what it blocks, when your card is charged and how to cancel it.
The Google Cloud free trial gives new customers a $300 credit for 90 days and requires a credit card, but your card is never charged automatically. When the credit or the 90 days run out, Google closes the trial account and stops your resources unless you click Activate to upgrade.
The Google Cloud free trial won’t charge your card unless you tell it to. You get a $300 Welcome credit that runs for 90 days from the day you sign up, nothing is billed during that window, and when the credit or the clock runs out Google stops your resources instead of rolling you onto a paid plan. That one fact settles most of what people search for, so we’ll start there and work through the rest.
Everything here was checked on Google’s own Free Program pages and the Free Trial Terms and Conditions on November 2, 2026. The terms were last modified on February 12, 2026. Our broader list of Google programs is in the Google Cloud free credits hub, and current offers are tracked on the Google Cloud credits page.
Who qualifies
Two things have to be true. You’ve never paid for Google Cloud, Google Maps Platform or Firebase, and you’ve never used the free trial before. The Maps and Firebase clause catches people out, since a Maps API key with billing turned on for a side project years ago counts as paying. US and Mexican federal, state and local government entities are also excluded unless Google agrees in writing.
The trial is tied to you as a customer, not to an email address, so a second Google account doesn’t reset it. If you’re ineligible, you still get the Always Free tier on any billing account, which we cover in the free tier guide.
Why Google asks for a card
You have to add a credit card or another valid payment method during signup, and in some countries Google also asks for bank account verification. The card is there to verify your identity, cut fraud and create the trial account. Nothing else.
After signup, Google places an authorization hold. It shows up as a pending transaction between $0.00 and $1.00, your bank may convert it to local currency, and no money leaves your account. The hold usually drops off within a few days, though Google allows itself up to a month. If the card expires or becomes invalid mid-trial, your account may be suspended until you fix it, so don’t use a card that expires next month.
There’s no card-free version of the trial. The one Google product that doesn’t need a card is Google AI Studio, which is free of charge in every region where it’s available. If you want to try Gemini models rather than cloud infrastructure, start there and read our Gemini API free tier guide.
What the $300 covers and what it blocks
The credit pays for products and services covered by the trial, including usage beyond the Always Free limits. In practice that means Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, BigQuery, Cloud Run, Cloud SQL and most of the catalog. The free tier allowances still apply during the trial and aren’t charged against the $300, so you effectively get both.
The restrictions matter more than the coverage. While your billing account is a trial account you can’t add GPUs to VM instances, use Google Cloud Marketplace, request a quota increase, create Windows Server VMs or create VMware Engine resources. Compute Engine is capped at eight concurrent cores, cryptocurrency mining is prohibited, and SLAs and technical support don’t apply. Eight cores runs a web app and a worker comfortably. It doesn’t run a training job.
Two AI exclusions are new in 2026. The $300 can’t pay for Gemini API usage in AI Studio, and it can’t pay for partner generative AI models sold as a managed API. The Gemini exclusion applies to accounts opened after March 2, 2026. Gemini through Vertex AI on Google Cloud is still covered, which is the route we’d take if the trial is your only credit.
What signing up creates
Signup creates three things you’ll see in the console. A project named “My First Project,” a billing account named “My Billing Account” that holds the $300, and a Google payments profile with your card and address. The email you used is the administrator of all three. If you plan to apply for the startup program later, write down the 18-character billing account ID now, since credits are deposited into it, as explained in our startup credits guide.
Product-specific trials stack on top. The cloud.google.com/free page lists a 90-day GKE trial with no cluster fee, a 30-day Cloud SQL trial with an 8 vCPU Enterprise Plus instance, 64 GB of memory and 100 GB of storage, a 90-day Spanner trial with 10 GB of storage, a 30-day AlloyDB trial with an 8 vCPU primary instance and up to 1 TB of storage, and a 10-day Bigtable trial with a one-node SSD cluster. Paying customers get these too.
How to see what you have left
Your remaining credit and days live in a Cloud Billing report. Open the console, go to Billing, select “My Billing Account,” and open Reports. The summary shows credits applied against usage, and the Credits page in the Billing menu lists the promotional credits attached to the account. The cost table report breaks credits out as separate line items with a credit type, and trial credit shows up as the PROMOTION type.
Check it weekly. A single n2-standard-8 left running costs more per month than most people expect, and the trial closes the moment the $300 is gone, not at day 90.
When your card is charged
Your card is charged only after you upgrade, and only for usage the credit and the free tier don’t cover. Upgrading is a manual step. Go to the Welcome page in the console, click Activate in the toolbar, and confirm in the dialog. You need to be a Billing Account Administrator on the trial account to see the button.
After you activate, the remaining credit stays available, but it still has to be used within the original 90 days from signup. Unused credit expires three months after the trial start date whether you upgraded or not. Billing then applies to anything above the credit, above the free tier limits, or on products that were never part of the trial, such as Marketplace purchases and third-party models.
If you never click Activate, nothing is charged. That’s the answer to “does Google Cloud charge automatically after the free trial,” and Google puts it as “No automatic charges, no commitment” on the Free Program page.
What happens when the trial ends
The trial ends one of two ways. You upgrade, or the trial billing account closes itself because 90 days passed or the $300 was spent. On auto-close, billing is disabled on your project, every resource you created is stopped, and data stored in services like Compute Engine is marked for deletion. You may see a message that the billing account was canceled or suspended. That’s normal.
A 30-day grace period follows. If you upgrade during those 30 days, Google says you “might be able” to recover stopped resources and data, and during the same window you can contact support to migrate data from services other than Compute Engine. After 30 days the resources are permanently deleted. Back up anything you care about before day 90, because recovery is described as possible, not promised.
How to cancel if you want a clean break
You don’t have to cancel. Letting the clock run out costs nothing. If you’d rather shut things down yourself, there are two options. To stop charges on a single project, open Billing, go to My Projects, open the Actions menu on the project row, and choose Disable billing. Some resources may be removed and become non-recoverable, so back up first.
To close the whole trial account, open the Account management page in Billing, select the account, and click “Close billing account.” You need the Billing Account Administrator role, and the account can’t have an outstanding balance or outdated payment information. Closing stops every billable service in every linked project, including running VMs and storage buckets, and you get a final bill for anything that wasn’t covered. On a trial account that figure is zero.
What to do once the trial is over
Once you’re on a paid account, two things keep costs down. The Always Free tier continues forever, and the startup program can add anywhere from $2,000 to $350,000 if you qualify. Set a budget alert on day one of the paid account, since the trial’s built-in stop no longer protects you.
If you’re weighing Google against Amazon, the AWS trial works differently and our Google Cloud vs AWS comparison lays out both. Our Google Cloud review covers the platform beyond the credits.
The short version
- $300 for 90 days, one per customer, and anyone who has ever paid Google Cloud, Maps Platform or Firebase is ineligible.
- A card is required, with a $0.00 to $1.00 hold that is released, not charged.
- No GPUs, Marketplace, quota increases or Windows Server VMs during the trial, and the credit can’t pay for Gemini API in AI Studio.
- The trial never charges you automatically; you must click Activate to be billed.
- Resources stop at day 90 or when the credit is gone, with a 30-day grace period before deletion.
FAQ
Does Google Cloud free trial charge automatically
No. You aren’t billed during the trial and there are no automatic charges. Billing only starts after you click Activate on the Welcome page, and even then the remaining credit is used first.
How do I cancel Google Cloud free trial
You can simply let it expire. To end it early, go to Billing, open Account management, select the trial account and click “Close billing account,” or disable billing on each project from the My Projects page. Back up data first, since stopped resources can be deleted.
Can I get Google Cloud free trial without credit card
No. Signup requires a credit card or another valid payment method, and some countries also require bank verification. Google AI Studio and the Gemini API free tier are the card-free alternatives for testing Gemini models.
What happens after Google Cloud free trial ends
If you didn’t upgrade, the trial billing account closes, your resources are stopped and your projects lose access to Google Cloud. You then have 30 days to upgrade and possibly recover them, after which they are permanently deleted.
Can I extend Google Cloud free trial
Not through any official route. The trial ends at 90 days or $300, whichever comes first, and unused credit expires at the 90-day mark even after an upgrade. The next step for most teams is the startup program rather than a second trial.