The disruption, which began on Monday morning, has affected online platforms worldwide, including key UK government services and several high-street banks.
According to Downdetector, which tracks real-time outages, more than 2,000 reports of issues were logged in the US alone by 9.20am.
On its service status page, Amazon Web Services confirmed that it was experiencing “increased error rates” and delays across “multiple AWS services.”
What has been affected?
The impact has been extensive, hitting banks, mobile networks, and government portals.
The UK Government Gateway – accessed via Gov.uk and used for services such as HMRC, Universal Credit, and state pensions has been affected, alongside several corporate and communication platforms.
An HMRC spokesperson said:
“We’re aware that customers are having problems accessing our online services, as part of global issues affecting Amazon Web Services. We’re working urgently with them on this matter.
Our phone lines are currently busy as a result, so for anything that isn’t urgent we recommend calling at a later time.”
All Amazon products, including Prime Video, Alexa, and Amazon Music, are also experiencing issues, as is the main Amazon retail website.
Downdetector listed nearly 50 major outlets affected by the outage, including:
Amazon • Amazon Alexa • Amazon Music • Amazon Prime Video • Amazon Web Services • Ancestry • Asana • Atlassian • Bank of Scotland • Blink Security • BT • Canva • Clash of Clans • Clash Royale • Coinbase • Dead by Daylight • Duolingo • EE • Epic Games Store • Eventbrite • Flickr • Fortnite • Government Gateway • Halifax • Hay Day • Hinge • HMRC • IMDb • Jira Software • Just Eat • Life360 • Lloyds Bank • Microsoft 365 • MyFitnessPal • Peloton • Perplexity AI • PlayStation Network • Pokémon Go • Ring • Roblox • Rocket League • Signal • Sky Mobile • Slack • Smartsheet • Snapchat • Strava • Square • Tidal • WhatsApp • Wordle • Xero • Zoom.
AWS engineers are investigating the root cause, but there is no confirmed timeline for full service restoration.
