Wondering how to transfer EC2 instance or AMI to a different AWS account? We can help you!

Here at Bobcares, we handle similar requests from our customers as a part of our Server Management Services.

Today let’s see the steps that our Support Engineers follow to transfer EC2 instance.

How to transfer EC2 instance or AMI to a different AWS account
Generally, it is not possible to transfer existing instances or AMIs between AWS accounts. However, we can manually migrate an EC2 image from one AWS account to another.

We will see the steps that our support engineers follow to transfer EC2 instances with unencrypted Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes.

Steps to follow:
1. Firstly we have to create a custom AMI from the instance we wish to use as the source account.

2. We must ensure to include all required EBS data volumes in the AMI. Also, we must ensure that the AMI doesn’t have a static IP configuration, as it may result in connectivity issues.

3. Then we have to share the AMI with the target account using the Amazon EC2 console or the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

4. After that, from the target account, find the AMI using the EC2 console or the AWS CLI.

5. Now launch a new instance from the shared AMI on the target account.

6. And create a custom AMI from the target account instance.

7. We can deregister the AMI on the source account if we don’t wish to run any instances from it.