Why am I not getting AWS Budgets alert emails?

Short answer

If you added the email address to a budget on or after September 30, 2026, AWS now sends it a verification email first, and only verified addresses receive budget alerts. Open the budget in the Billing and Cost Management console, look at the status next to each recipient, and fix anything that says Pending or Inactive. Addresses added before that date keep working without change.

Why it matters for Canadian buyers

This change is not specific to Canada. It applies to AWS accounts in the Canada (Central) and Canada West (Calgary) Regions the same as anywhere else; AWS says it is available in all Regions except AWS GovCloud (US) and China.

What makes it matter in practice is how Canadian finance and IT teams often set alerts up: a shared mailbox or a distribution list as the recipient. Verification needs someone signed in to the AWS account that added the address. If nobody opens that mailbox or nobody has console access, the address can sit unverified and the budget alert never arrives. A budget alert is often the first sign of a runaway workload or a compromised account, so a silent alert is a real gap.

What to do

• In the AWS Billing and Cost Management console, go to Budgets, open each budget, and read the status of every email recipient: Active, Pending, Active (legacy), or Inactive.
• Pending: the verification email was sent and not yet confirmed. Ask the recipient to open it. Mail comes from an @aws.com sender; check spam and add @aws.com to any allow list.
• Link expired: verification links expire 12 hours after they are sent. Choose Resend verification. There is a short cooldown between sends.
• Inactive: the address is not registered to receive alerts. Fix any typo, then choose Send Notification to register it and send a verification email.
• Confirm in the right place: the recipient must sign in to the AWS account that added the address. If they cannot, an administrator on that account can complete it, or use a different address.
• Repeat per account. Verification is per email address per AWS account, so a central FinOps address used across linked accounts must be verified in each one.
• Consider a distribution list as the recipient, with membership managed outside AWS, so one verified address covers changing staff. AWS suggests this for cases where people cannot sign in to AWS.
• If a budget sends to an Amazon SNS topic instead, that uses SNS's own subscription confirmation, not this flow.
• Know the limits: up to 10 email recipients per budget notification, and billing data is updated at least once per day, so alerts are not instant.
• Test it: add a low-threshold budget, wait for the next evaluation after verification, and confirm the mail lands where you expect.

Sources

All fetched 2026-10-29.

• AWS What's New, "AWS Budgets now supports email verification for notification subscribers" (Oct 1, 2026)

  Applies to addresses added from 9/30/26; existing addresses unaffected; delivered through AWS User Notifications; all Regions except GovCloud (US) and China.

• AWS Billing and Cost Management User Guide, "Adding email recipients to a budget notification"

  Statuses, @aws.com sender, 12-hour expiry, Resend verification, Send Notification, per-account verification, 10 recipients, SNS flow.

• AWS Budgets best practices

  Billing data updated at least once per day.

• AWS Regions list (Canada (Central) ca-central-1, Canada West (Calgary) ca-west-1)

Related

• Cloud cost work
• All notes

If you want a second pair of eyes on who actually receives your AWS billing alerts, you can book a consult.