GCP peering egress price increase, 1 May 2026
On 1 May 2026 Google Cloud raised list egress rates for CDN Interconnect, Direct Peering and Carrier Peering. North America doubled, from $0.04 to $0.08 per GiB.
The headlines say Google doubled its egress rates. That is not what happened. Standard internet egress did not change. If your traffic goes straight from Google Cloud to end users, you are paying exactly what you paid in April. This page separates the two, because conflating them is the single most common error in the coverage.
Source: cloud.google.com/vpc/network-pricing →
Google does not publish CDN Interconnect, Direct Peering or Carrier Peering rates on its public network-pricing page. That page states only that “these rates do not apply for Cloud CDN, CDN Interconnect, Carrier Peering, Direct Peering, and Cloud Interconnect traffic” and directs readers to separate product pricing, which does not list per-GiB figures either. The peering rates below are the increase as reported by multiple independent industry sources in May 2026, and we cite them as reported figures, not as vendor-published list prices. The standard internet egress rates on this page are taken directly from Google’s published pricing. If Google publishes the peering figures, we will replace these with the official numbers.
What changed
Peering egress list prices, effective 1 May 2026. The increase applies automatically, with no opt-out on list pricing.
| Region | Before | From 1 May 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| North America | $0.04 / GiB | $0.08 / GiB | +100% |
| Europe | $0.05 / GiB | $0.08 / GiB | +60% |
| Asia | $0.06 / GiB | $0.085 / GiB | +42% |
Applies to CDN Interconnect, Direct Peering and Carrier Peering. Figures as reported by multiple independent industry sources; Google does not publish these rates publicly (see “how we sourced this” above). Committed and fixed-term contract pricing is typically held until renewal, so check your agreement.
What did not change
Standard internet egress, the Premium Tier rate that most workloads actually pay, is untouched:
So if you serve traffic straight to the internet from Google Cloud, this announcement does not affect your bill. Run your own numbers on the GCP egress calculator.
Why it still matters
Peering was the cheap path, and that is exactly the point. At $0.04/GiB, North American peering cost roughly a third of standard Premium Tier egress at $0.12/GiB. That gap is why high-volume and hybrid architectures were built around peering in the first place.
At $0.08/GiB the arbitrage narrows sharply. Peering is still cheaper than standard egress, but it is now only a 33 percent saving in North America rather than a 67 percent one. Any architecture whose business case rested on the old spread deserves a fresh look.
What to do about it
- Check your contract first. List-price increases usually do not touch committed or fixed-term pricing until renewal. Establish what you actually pay before you re-architect anything.
- Re-run the peering business case. The spread against standard egress has halved in North America. If peering was marginal for you before, it may not clear the bar now.
- Compare against zero-egress providers. Cloudflare R2 and Wasabi charge nothing for egress, and Backblaze B2 gives free egress up to three times your stored volume. For content-serving workloads that is a structurally different cost base, not a discount. See the provider comparison.
- Do not panic about standard egress. If you are not on CDN Interconnect, Direct Peering or Carrier Peering, nothing has changed for you.
Common questions
No, and this is the most common misreading. The 1 May 2026 increase applies to CDN Interconnect, Direct Peering and Carrier Peering only. Standard internet egress, the Premium Tier rate most workloads actually pay when data goes to end users, did not change. It remains $0.12/GiB for the first 1 TB, $0.11/GiB from 1 to 10 TB, and $0.08/GiB above 10 TB.
North America went from $0.04 to $0.08 per GiB, a 100 percent increase. Europe went from $0.05 to $0.08 per GiB, a 60 percent increase. Asia went from $0.06 to $0.085 per GiB, a 42 percent increase. The increase applies automatically to list pricing, with no opt-out.
Only customers egressing via CDN Interconnect, Direct Peering or Carrier Peering. These are peering arrangements typically used by higher-volume and hybrid architectures that hand traffic to a CDN partner or to their own network at a Google edge. If you serve traffic straight to the internet from Google Cloud, your rate is unchanged.
Because peering was the cheap path. At $0.04/GiB, North American peering was roughly a third the cost of standard Premium Tier egress at $0.12/GiB, which is precisely why high-volume customers built architectures around it. At $0.08/GiB the arbitrage narrows sharply, and the assumptions behind those architectures need re-checking.
The increase applies to list pricing. Committed and fixed-term contract pricing is typically held for the life of the contract or until renewal, so the practical impact depends on your agreement. Check your contract terms rather than assuming either way.