AWS RDS for Oracle: Licensing, Pricing & Setup (2026)

Short answer

Oracle RDS has two licensing models: License Included (Standard Edition 2 only) and Bring Your Own License (Enterprise Edition and SE2), and you can switch model by modifying the instance.
With BYOL you must license both the primary and the standby in a Multi-AZ deployment, plus any separately licensed options you use.
AWS supports Oracle Database 19c and 26ai (both Long Term Support) and 21c; 26ai is Enterprise Edition only, and Oracle ends 21c support on 31 July 2027.
SE2 is limited to smaller instance classes (up to 4xlarge in AWS's list); Enterprise Edition scales to the largest classes.
RDS Custom for Oracle, the variant with OS access, reaches end of support on 31 March 2027, so do not start new projects on it.

How we know: Research-based: licensing rules, editions, releases, instance-class ranges, limitations and connection steps were checked against the Amazon RDS User Guide and the Amazon RDS for Oracle pricing page on 8 October 2026. This is not licensing advice: confirm your Oracle entitlements with Oracle or your licensing specialist. We have not run RDS for Oracle instances for this guide, so no performance claims are made.

What AWS RDS for Oracle is

AWS RDS for Oracle (Amazon RDS for Oracle, often searched simply as Oracle RDS or AWS Oracle database) is a managed Oracle Database service. AWS provisions the host, installs and patches Oracle, takes backups and runs Multi-AZ failover, which AWS recommends for production. You connect with SQL*Plus, SQL Developer or any Oracle client.

As with other RDS engines you give up some control. The master user receives the DBA role with limitations: AWS lists ALTER DATABASE, ALTER SYSTEM, CREATE ANY DIRECTORY, DROP ANY DIRECTORY, GRANT ANY PRIVILEGE and GRANT ANY ROLE as privileges the DBA role does not get, and you cannot use SYS, SYSTEM or other Oracle-supplied administrative accounts. Some equivalent tasks go through AWS procedures such as rdsadmin.rdsadmin_util.grant_sys_object, and optional features are added through option groups.

Licensing: License Included vs Bring Your Own License

AWS documents two licensing models for RDS for Oracle, and you can change from one to the other later by modifying the DB instance.

License Included (LI). AWS holds the Oracle licence and the hourly price includes the software. AWS states that LI is supported only for Standard Edition 2 (SE2). With an AWS Support plan that includes case support, you raise both RDS and Oracle Database issues with AWS.
Bring Your Own License (BYOL). You use existing Oracle licences, with Software Update License and Support, for Enterprise Edition (EE) or SE2. You must license the instance class and edition you run, any separately licensed options and packs, and follow Oracle's policy for licensing in cloud environments. You keep your Oracle support contract and contact Oracle for database issues. The pricing page notes that BYOL charges do not vary by edition.

Two rules catch people out. First, in a Multi-AZ deployment under BYOL you need licences for both the primary and the standby. Second, edition changes are one-way: with a spare BYOL licence you can move from SE2 to EE by restoring a snapshot into a new EE instance, but AWS says you cannot migrate from EE to another edition. To keep track of usage, AWS License Manager can follow RDS for Oracle editions and packs by vCPU.

RDS for Oracle editions and licensing (AWS User Guide, checked 8 October 2026)
Edition	License Included	BYOL	Instance classes (from AWS's list)
Enterprise Edition (EE)	No	Yes	Standard and memory optimised classes up to the largest sizes (for example db.r7i up to 48xlarge), plus db.t3.small to db.t3.2xlarge
Standard Edition 2 (SE2), BYOL	n/a	Yes	Mostly large to 4xlarge in the m and r families (plus some metal sizes), and db.t3.small to db.t3.2xlarge
Standard Edition 2 (SE2), License Included	Yes	n/a	A narrower set: db.m5, m7i, m8i, r5, r6i, r7i, r8i from large to 4xlarge, and db.t3.small to db.t3.2xlarge

Oracle releases, multitenant and RDS Custom

AWS lists three Oracle Database releases on RDS: 19c and 26ai, which AWS describes as the current Long Term Support releases, and 21c, an Innovation Release that Oracle stops supporting on 31 July 2027, with RDS deprecating it on the same timeline. 26ai is available only in Enterprise Edition on RDS, because Oracle released it for Linux x86-64 as EE only. That gives SE2 users on 21c a choice: migrate logically back to 19c SE2 (Data Pump or AWS DMS, since you cannot downgrade in place) or move to 26ai on EE licences.

21c and 26ai support only the multitenant architecture, so the database is a container database (CDB) holding pluggable databases (PDBs), which RDS calls tenant databases. 19c can run as a traditional non-CDB or as a CDB.

RDS Custom for Oracle gave you OS and database access for applications that need customisation. AWS has announced its end of support on 31 March 2027, after which you can no longer reach its console or resources. In our view the realistic options after that are standard RDS for Oracle, if its restrictions are acceptable, or a self-managed Oracle installation on Amazon EC2 if you need OS access.

Setting up Amazon RDS for Oracle

The documented console flow is the standard RDS create, with Oracle-specific choices:

Choose Create database, then Oracle, then the edition (EE or SE2) and the licence model. The console shows which edition, class and licence combinations are valid; the CLI command aws rds describe-orderable-db-instance-options --engine oracle-se2 --license-model license-included does the same.
Choose the engine version and architecture: multitenant (CDB) or, on 19c, non-CDB.
Set the master username, password and initial database name (Easy create names it DATABASE).
Pick an instance class from your edition's allowed range, storage and Single-AZ or Multi-AZ (remember the BYOL standby licence).
Choose the VPC, subnet group and a security group that allows TCP 1521 (or your port) only from your application or admin hosts, and keep public access off.
Attach a custom parameter group and an option group if you need features such as Oracle Native Network Encryption, OEM, Statspack or time zone settings, then create the database.

Connecting with SQL*Plus or SQL Developer

AWS's getting-started guide connects with sqlplus admin@<endpoint>:1521/DATABASE. For long endpoints AWS recommends the full descriptor instead of the short EZ Connect form, which can hit a character limit:

sqlplus 'user_name@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=dns_name)(PORT=port))(CONNECT_DATA=(SID=database_name)))'

The SID is the database name you set at creation, not the DB instance identifier. In SQL Developer, add a connection with the endpoint as host name, the port and the SID or service name. If the connection hangs without an error, AWS points to the security group first. See the best Oracle database tools for client options.

Pricing

Prices from the provider's official pricing pages, checked 8 October 2026, region US East (N. Virginia), in USD, excluding tax. List prices only; discounts, commitments and your actual usage change the bill.

RDS for Oracle is billed per DB instance-hour (per second, 10-minute minimum after a billable change), On-Demand or Reserved, for Single-AZ or Multi-AZ, plus storage, provisioned IOPS, backup storage beyond the free allowance and data transfer. License Included SE2 rates include the Oracle licence, so they are higher than BYOL rates for the same class; BYOL rates are the same whichever edition you license. For an EE workload, Oracle licence and support costs paid to Oracle usually dwarf the AWS bill, so model both.

Hourly rates differ by class, licence model and deployment; look them up on the AWS pricing page or in the AWS Pricing Calculator. The rates AWS states in the text of the page are below.

Rates stated on the RDS for Oracle pricing page
Item	Rate (USD)	Note
T3 CPU credits (Unlimited mode)	0.075 per vCPU-hour	Only when average CPU exceeds the baseline; not covered by Reserved Instances
Zero-ETL to Amazon Redshift: snapshot export to seed or resynchronise	0.01 per GB	US East (N. Virginia) example
Zero-ETL to Amazon Redshift: change data capture transfer	2.00 per GB	Same example; Redshift and normal RDS charges are extra

Estimate: zero-ETL integration charges for a month

A 200 GB RDS for Oracle database replicated to Amazon Redshift in US East (N. Virginia), seeded once, with 10 GB of data changes in the month.
Covers only the zero-ETL integration charges; RDS instance, storage and I/O, and Redshift costs are excluded.

Item	Basis	Estimated per month
Initial snapshot export	200 GB x 0.01 USD	2.00 USD
Change data capture transfer	10 GB x 2.00 USD	20.00 USD
Estimated total		22.00 USD for the month (integration charges only)

Worked examples are estimates calculated from the list prices above; they are not quotes or measured bills.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use Oracle Enterprise Edition with License Included on RDS?

No. AWS states that License Included is supported only for Standard Edition 2. Enterprise Edition on RDS for Oracle requires Bring Your Own License with Software Update License and Support.

Do I need a licence for the Multi-AZ standby?

Under BYOL, yes: AWS says you must have a licence for both the primary and the standby DB instance in a Multi-AZ deployment. Under License Included, the licence is part of the price.

Is Oracle Database 26ai available on Amazon RDS for Oracle?

Yes, in Enterprise Edition only. It supports only the multitenant (CDB) architecture. Enterprise Edition users on 21c can upgrade to 26ai in place.

Is RDS Custom for Oracle still an option?

Not for new work. AWS has announced that RDS Custom for Oracle reaches end of support on 31 March 2027, after which its console and resources are no longer accessible.

Can I get SYS or SYSDBA access on Oracle RDS?

No. The master user gets the DBA role with some privileges removed, such as ALTER SYSTEM and ALTER DATABASE. Administrative tasks use the procedures AWS provides in the rdsadmin packages.

Sources

Checked 8 October 2026.

How we research cloud database guides: our editorial method. CodeWithSQL earns nothing from the providers mentioned.