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Google Cloud have suggested that from April (now pushed back to July) people will be billed for the use of static external IPs (approx £2.50 per month per IP). However, the following Reddit page (https://www.reddit.com/r/googlecloud/comments/cswg9g/will_my_free_microvps_start_cost_money_2020/) suggests that this is not applicable to Free Tier, but I can't find any explicit information that can confirm or deny either way.

I had thought this was true as I was not being billed for this in April, but given the recent notification that this will start to take affect from July now (and not April), I am wondering if the lack of charging was due to the date being pushed back and not in fact the free-tier allowance.

Can anyone point me to any evidence that can answer this categorically?

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Have a look at the documentation Google Cloud Free Tier section Always Free usage limits:

Google Cloud Free Tier is also available for external IP addresses that are being used by VM instances. In-use external IP addresses are available without additional cost until you have used a number of hours equal to the total hours in the current month. Usage calculations are combined across all in-use external IP addresses. Google Cloud Free Tier for in-use external IP addresses applies to all instance types, not just f1-micro instances.

and at the end of the page you can see when it was updated:

Last updated 2020-03-24.

As you can see, there's no changes for Always Free tier at the moment.

If some usage limits will be changed in the future you'll be informed in advance via official channel and documentation will be updated as well.

In addition, you can contact Google Cloud Support and use Basic support plan that available for free to ask any Billing related questions:

Billing support and read-only access to break/fix cases

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Google updated their policy as of 2021-02-04. https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free-tier#always-free-usage-limits

Google Cloud Free Tier does not include external IP addresses.

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    That's interesting. Thanks for posting and updating! I am monitoring my spend, and have not incurred any costs as yet for the external IP address that I have, so I wonder if this will be for new IPs only, or whether the additional costs will be incurred in the future.
    – Codemwnci
    Feb 11, 2021 at 23:33
  • so that means there's no way to use 'external IP' for free? even if 'external IP' is in use and "ephemeral". and 'Network Service Tier' "Standard" not "Premium". I'm confused with these words. May 27, 2021 at 6:14
  • Static and ephemeral IP addresses in use on standard VM instances $0.004 link May 27, 2021 at 6:33
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For anyone that is looking at this, as of Sept 2022, Compute Engine free tier does not charge for an external IP address.

https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features#always-free-usage-limits

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As @Matt already pointed out, this seems to have changed in February 2021. The free tier pricing page now includes:

Google Cloud Free Tier does not include external IP addresses.

where it previously included:

Google Cloud Free Tier is also available for external IP addresses that are being used by VM instances. In-use external IP addresses are available without additional cost until you have used a number of hours equal to the total hours in the current month. Usage calculations are combined across all in-use external IP addresses across all regions. Google Cloud Free Tier for in-use external IP addresses applies to all non-preemptible instance types, not just f1-micro instances.

The change can be seen between this capture and this capture.

I have not yet been charged anything for my external IP use as of July 2021, so I personally cannot attest to when this change will kick in or if it only applies to new IPs.

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