For any service -- say EC2: - launch instance A - create a new CAT and activate it in the Billing console - apply CAT to instance A - get no cost d

For any service -- say EC2: - launch instance A - create a new CAT and activate it in the Billing console - apply CAT to instance A - get no cost data back for that instance in Cost Explorer filtering on that CAT - terminate instance A - launch instance B - apply CAT to instance B - get cost data back for that instance in Cost Explorer filtering on that CAT It was explained to me by AWS support that this is in fact how it works, after I opened a case into why I wasn't getting full data back for some legacy stuff. So for any new account I would say that your tagging scheme should get built first, before infrastructure or anything else.