General Information 

The transition to Open Data will lead to the following changes: 

1. The licence that governs the data use will change from the ECMWF Standard Licence Agreement to the permissive CC-BY-4.0 licence. 
2. The Information Cost and High-Frequency Information Cost (data costs) will be set to €0.00. 
3. If you continue to receive ECMWF Real-time Data directly from ECMWF, Service Charges (including Volume Charges) will still apply. 

There are no planned changes to the price or content of the ECMWF Service Packs or charges. 

The current 'free & open data' will remain at the current 0.25 resolution until January 2026. In January 2026, we anticipate increasing the resolution to the full 0.1 degrees with the current parameters and timesteps. 

Hourly data will not be available in the free and open dataset. 

Product Requirements Catalogue Updates

Later in May 2025, ECMWF will release an updated Product Requirements Catalogue that automatically removes Information Cost from 01 October 2025.  You will still be able to evaluate quotes based on past versions of ecQuote to evaluate the changes to your data costs. 

Next Steps for Existing Users

For users with licences directly with ECMWF

Until September 2025, if you already hold a licence, ECMWF will continue to apply the Information Cost. 

1. In September 2025, ECMWF will amend your current agreement to remove the Information Cost from 01 October 2025. 
2. You will receive a document describing the reduction in Information Cost and any credit notes that may apply as a result. 
3. In future, ECMWF will split your invoices and installments into two parts:  one invoice for Information Cost applicable up to 01 October 2025 and a second for Service Charges that apply to the full annual contract. 
4. Amendments until September will still include Information Cost until we have done the automated reduction. 

Existing agreements can be extended until the 30th September 2025 and current charges will be applied until then. 

For users with licences and delivery from an ECMWF Member or Co-operating State

Please contact your Licensor directly to discuss the process. ECMWF is unable to assist in these matters as we are not the Licensee. 

Terminations

As per Article 10 of the ECMWF Standard Licence Agreement, users are entitled to terminate with 3 months notice. As we will be applying a reduction on 01 October 2025, ECMWF will not be waiving the 3 month termination clause and ask that users contact us via the Support Portal if you wish to terminate your licence. 

Important Clarifications & Exceptions

• ECMWF management will continue to review requests for Research Project licences and will decide whether the fees should be waived or not. 
• Recipients of Research Project licences or Council Approved User licences will continue to receive data under the current scope of use and ECMWF will continue to restrict Service Provision and Commercial Use.  If you wish to provide services or operate commercially, a Service Provider agreement will apply with the associated charges.   Please contact ECMWF if you intend to use the data for these purposes.
• WMO Members will be able to receive data free of charge for the Basic service pack for the Official Duty purposes (for the protection of life and property).  For WMO Members requiring more services, the full Service Charges for the relevant pack will apply. 
• ECMWF regrets that we are unable to support users who obtain and use data from third parties (i.e. support is only provided to those with a Service Agreement with ECMWF or the Member and Co-operating States).
• Please kindly note that, whilst we can appreciate users may want to calculate cost changes to their current or upcoming licence agreements ahead of time, we cannot commit to definitive figures currently. Users will be notified of the reduction in Information Cost and any credit notes that may apply as a result.