Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Always Free: free credits and offers
Best offer on record: OCI Always Free services (Free Tier — no expiry). 4 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
OCI Always Free services (Free Tier — no expiry) high confidence
Always Free limits (oracle.com Free Tier service list, re-fetched live 2026-10-22): Compute = 2 AMD VMs (each 1/8 OCPU + 1 GB RAM) and ARM = 1,500 OCPU-hours + 9,000 GB-hours/mo (Ampere A1, ~2 OCPU / 12 GB RAM, usable as 1 or 2 VMs). Storage = 200 GB block (2 block volumes + 5 backups) + 20 GB object (standard+infrequent+archive combined) + 50,000 object API requests/mo. Networking = 10 TB/mo outbound egress, 2 VCNs, 1 Load Balancer (10 Mbps) + 1 Flexible NLB, 50 site-to-site VPN connections. Databases = up to 2 Autonomous DBs total (ATP/ADW/AJD/APEX), NoSQL (133M reads + 133M writes/mo, 25 GB/table up to 3 tables), 1 HeatWave (50 GB storage + 50 GB backup). Plus APEX 744 hrs/instance, Email 100/day, 5 Bastions, monitoring/logging within free quotas. Always Free services are usable for an unlimited period.
Eligibility
Open to any individual/account — no .edu or student-email requirement, no startup requirement. One Free Trial or Always Free account per person. Available in regions where commercial OCI is offered; some services (e.g., ARM, Autonomous DB) only in select/home regions.
How to claim
Self-serve sign-up at oracle.com/cloud/free/ -> create a tenancy in a supported region -> provision Always Free shapes/services within the limits above. No charge while you stay within Always Free amounts. A credit/credit-like debit card is required at sign-up.
Expiry
No expiry / no renewal — Always Free has no time limit. Caveat: accounts idle for 30+ days may be deemed abandoned and suspended/terminated.
Gotchas
Card IS collected at sign-up for identity verification (a ~$1 temporary authorization hold is removed in 3-5 days; PIN, virtual, single-use and prepaid cards are NOT accepted). Do not conflate Always Free with the 30-day $300 trial. ARM is ~2 OCPU/12 GB (up to 2 VMs), NOT '4 micro VMs'; the 200 GB is the block-storage pool, not a per-VM figure. Autonomous DB capped at 2 instances; per-DB storage and region availability ('select regions') are not stated on the free page. Egress beyond 10 TB/mo and storage beyond free quotas are billed.
30-day Free Trial with US$300 credit (all OCI services) high confidence
Sign-up grants US$300 of credit usable on all eligible OCI services for 30 days, on top of Always Free. During the 30-day window you can also use the larger 'Trial' allowances listed on the page: Compute up to 4,500 hrs + 500 GB storage; Storage up to 7 TB block + 11 TB object; Autonomous DB up to 3,338 hrs + 2 TB Exadata; plus trial quotas for Functions, Kubernetes, WebLogic, HeatWave (5,000 hrs), Load Balancer, etc.
Eligibility
Any individual/account (students and startups alike) — no .edu or startup criteria. One Free Trial per person; a valid credit/credit-like debit card is required at sign-up for identity verification.
How to claim
Same sign-up as the Free Tier (oracle.com/cloud/free/); the $300 trial credit attaches automatically to the new account. Spend it within 30 days. Optionally convert to Pay-As-You-Go at any point by adding a payment method.
Expiry
US$300 OR 30 days, whichever comes first; then the account drops to Always Free only (or Pay-As-You-Go if converted). Idle 30+ days may trigger suspension.
Gotchas
Card is REQUIRED at sign-up (temporary ~$1 auth hold; no PIN/virtual/prepaid cards). The $300 covers only the 30-day window — afterwards only Always Free remains unless you convert to Pay-As-You-Go. You are billed for data egress beyond 10 TB/mo, storage beyond free quotas, and any service not in Always Free. The live page shows US$300 (older marketing referenced a smaller figure; confirm $300, not $200).
Oracle Startup program (application-based startup credit) low confidence
A separate, application-based credit program for startups, layered on top of the self-serve $300 trial. I could NOT read the live program page today: the legacy URL oracle.com/startupcloud/ returns 404 and oracle.com/startups/ is bot-gated (WAF 403) from this environment, so current credit amounts, duration, funding-cap and company-age criteria could not be independently confirmed.
Eligibility
Startups (application-based; typically partner/ecosystem criteria). Exact company-age / funding-cap limits not verifiable today.
How to claim
Apply via the Oracle startup program portal (oracle.com/startups/ or a successor URL); on approval the startup receives cloud credit. Exact 2026 steps and limits unverified.
Expiry
Unknown — could not verify the live program terms today.
Gotchas
Do not rely on third-party numbers: the official page was inaccessible today (404/403), so re-verify amounts, funding cap, and duration in a normal browser. Distinguish this application-based program from the universal $300 trial / Always Free tier, which anyone can use.
Education front — Oracle University (training) and Oracle Cloud Academy (appears sunset); no .edu-only free cloud offer medium confidence
No distinct .edu-gated or student-email-only free cloud-credit program was found. The 'education' front is Oracle University (education.oracle.com), a free training/certification/skills-development portal (it confers no OCI cloud credit). The former 'Oracle Cloud Academy' (education.oracle.com/cloud-academy), which historically provided free OCI credits to learners/instructors, now returns a '404 / Oracle University' error page as of today, indicating that offering has been sunset or redirected.
Eligibility
No .edu requirement for any current Oracle free cloud offer. Oracle University is open (no student-email gate).
How to claim
Students obtain cloud for free only via the universal Free Tier + $300 trial (a card is required). Oracle University courses are free at education.oracle.com but grant no OCI credit.
Expiry
Cloud Academy appears ended (its URL serves a 404/error page today).
Gotchas
Do not expect a student/.edu discount or dedicated student credit — use the standard sign-up. Some Oracle University certifications have paid components even though basic courses are free. Verify Cloud Academy status separately; as of 2026-10-22 its URL is an error page.
Material 2025-2026 changes observed: (1) Oracle Cloud Academy (education.oracle.com/cloud-academy) — the last education-only free-credits front — now serves a '404 / Oracle University' error page as of 2026-10-22, i.e. it appears sunset; the education front is now just Oracle University (free training, no cloud credit). (2) Legacy startup program URL oracle.com/startupcloud/ returns 404; its successor oracle.com/startups/ is WAF/bot-gated (403) so live terms were unreadable today — treat startup-program figures as unverified. (3) The trial landing URL oracle.com/cloud/free/trial/ now 404s; the trial is folded into /cloud/free/. (4) Trial credit is US$300 for 30 days on the live page (older docs referenced a smaller credit). (5) ARM Always Free is ~2 OCPU/12 GB (up to 2 VMs), not '4 micro VMs' as in the task's known note (the 200 GB figure is the block-storage pool). Note: the oracle.com/cloud/free/ page carries a metadata 'Updated Date' of 2024-09-10, so the Always Free limits have not been re-edited since that date per the page metadata; values were re-fetched live on 2026-10-22. WebSearch was unavailable this session (budget exhausted), so all verifications were done by directly fetching official Oracle pages; the /startups/ and /startupcloud/ pages could not be read.
Critic corrections
4 ARM micro VMs (200 GB storage), 10 TB egress ...: The Always Free Ampere A1 allowance is one flexible pool of 1,500 OCPU-hours and 9,000 GB-hours per month, equal to 2 OCPUs and 12 GB RAM. It is not four ARM micro VMs. Always Free also includes up to two AMD VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro instances and 200 GB of block storage.