Claude EU data residency: what stays in Europe

The first line a data protection officer looks for in a Claude proposal says where prompts are processed, and on Anthropic's own platform the answer is anywhere or the United States.¹ Claude EU data residency keeps inference, meaning the step where the model reads your prompt and writes the answer, inside EU member states. Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud offer it today, and each hides one detail that decides the outcome.

The guide covers only the location question, checked against each vendor's documentation on 13 October 2026, while the GDPR as a whole sits in our guide to whether Claude is GDPR compliant. Our explainer on Anthropic's data processing addendum, meaning the contract on how Anthropic handles your data, sits beside GDPR and American AI tools, which covers what US law means for your data. Nothing in this post is legal advice.

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Does Anthropic offer Claude EU data residency?

Anthropic offers no way to keep inference inside the EU on its own API or in Claude for Work, meaning the Team and Enterprise plans. Its data residency documentation lists only two inference locations, global and US.¹

Customers in the European Economic Area, meaning the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, contract with Anthropic Ireland, Limited under the Commercial Terms, and so do customers in Switzerland and the UK.²³ An Irish contract settles who you sign with and moves no servers.

Claude API and inference_geo

The inference_geo parameter, meaning a setting on each API request, accepts global, the default that may run anywhere, and us, which keeps inference in the US.¹ Workspace geo, meaning the separate setting for where data is stored, offers only us and cannot be changed once a workspace exists.¹ Anthropic's privacy centre adds that commercial traffic may be routed to select countries on four continents, Europe among them, and states plainly that data from commercial products such as Enterprise and the API is stored in the US.⁴ Inputs and outputs on the API are deleted from Anthropic's back end within 30 days by default, unless you keep them in a service with longer retention.⁵ A request flagged under Anthropic's Usage Policy, its rules on acceptable use, is the exception you cannot switch off, with inputs and outputs kept for up to 2 years.⁵

Claude for Work: Team and Enterprise

Claude for Work has no EU switch either, and its one location setting points the other way. The setting, called US-only inference, keeps inference inside the United States, appears only on usage-based Enterprise plans and bills Opus 4.6, Sonnet 4.6 and later models at 1.1 times standard API rates.⁶ A Team plan or a legacy seat-based Enterprise plan never shows the setting, and Anthropic notes that where data is stored is a separate matter from where inference runs.⁶

Claude Platform on AWS: the region does not pin inference

Claude Platform on AWS is an Anthropic service you reach through your Amazon Web Services (AWS) account, and Anthropic runs it and handles your prompts and outputs on your behalf.⁷ A workspace bound to Frankfurt (eu-central-1) decides where AWS keeps access rights, logs and billing, and which endpoint you call, meaning the web address your software sends each request to.⁷ Inference there still runs globally or in the US. Anthropic also says that for workspaces created before 18 September 2026, 00:00 UTC, it might process requests, store data and run inference outside AWS, so check when each workspace was created before you rely on this route.⁷

How does Claude on Amazon Bedrock keep data in the EU?

Amazon Bedrock, the AWS service that runs models from several vendors, offers each Claude model in up to three routing modes.⁸ In-region keeps every request in the region you call, while Geo routes it to a region inside one geography such as the EU and keeps the data there.⁸ For the EU, AWS packages Geo as EU cross-region inference through the EU profile, meaning a model ID that starts with eu. and routes each request between AWS regions in Europe.⁹ Global sends it to any commercial AWS region worldwide.⁸

Claude on Amazon Bedrock with the EU profile

The EU profile for Claude Sonnet 5.5 is eu.anthropic.claude-sonnet-5-5, and a request sent from Frankfurt, Stockholm, Milan, Spain, Ireland or Paris runs in one of those same six EU regions.⁹ A request sent from London or Zurich can also land in London or Zurich, which sit outside the EU, so send it from an EU region.⁹

Bedrock stores no prompts or answers by default, and when abuse detection does keep a copy, AWS stores it in the region where the request ran.¹⁰¹¹ Anthropic has no access to the AWS accounts that run Claude on Bedrock, so it never sees your prompts or the answers.¹² The Global profile costs about 10% less than the EU profile, according to AWS, and that difference is the price of staying in the EU.¹³ CloudTrail, the AWS audit log, records the region that processed every request in the field additionalEventData.inferenceRegion, so the promise becomes something you can check.¹³

Claude on Amazon Bedrock in Frankfurt: EU profile, not in-region

An EU profile called from Frankfurt does not mean Claude runs in Frankfurt, as the Bedrock table for the EU on 13 October 2026 shows.⁸⁹

No current 5.5 model runs in-region in any EU region on Bedrock, so a request sent to Frankfurt can be processed in Paris or Milan, inside the EU but outside Germany.⁸ A contract that names Germany as the only country rules out Claude on Bedrock today, because no Claude model runs in-region in Frankfurt, while a contract that names the EU does not. Google's residency table lists no German region for Claude either, but Google says specific models may process locally in France or Germany, so a contract that names Germany alone needs a model by model check on Google Cloud too.¹⁴ AWS lists no EU profile for Fable 5.1 and keeps Fable traffic up to 30 days for abuse checks by default, so EU-only work stays on Sonnet, Opus or Haiku.⁸¹¹

Claude Code on Amazon Bedrock

Claude Code, Anthropic's coding agent that reads and edits your codebase, prefers the EU profile once you set CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 and an eu-* region.¹⁵¹⁶ The documentation calls that a preference and not a guarantee, since a model without an EU profile falls back to any matching profile.¹⁵ Pinning each model to an EU profile ID, for example ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL=eu.anthropic.claude-sonnet-5-5, closes that gap, because Claude Code does not rewrite an ID you set yourself.¹⁵ Someone still has to write those IDs into the settings before a whole team uses it.¹⁵

Claude on Google Cloud Vertex AI: the EU multi-region endpoint

Google renamed Vertex AI to Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform on 22 April 2026, and Claude on Vertex AI now appears as Claude available on Agent Platform, with old links redirecting.¹⁷ The EU route on Google Cloud is the multi-region endpoint, meaning one address that serves the whole EU rather than one country, at aiplatform.eu.rep.googleapis.com with the location set to eu.¹⁸¹⁴ Google states that inference on that endpoint stays within EU member states and excludes the UK and Switzerland.¹⁴

Claude on Vertex AI (now Agent Platform): which models stay in the EU

Claude Sonnet 5.5, Opus 5.5 and Haiku 5.5 list EU multi-region support on Vertex AI, which makes Google Cloud a second EU route for the current models.¹⁴ Fable 5.1 lists EU support as well, and Google keeps every Fable prompt and response for up to 30 days, in the location you picked, to watch for abuse.¹⁹²⁰ Google also requires you to switch on sharing of those prompts and responses with Anthropic, which says in its privacy centre that data from commercial products such as Enterprise and the API is stored in the US.¹⁹²⁰⁴ No route in this guide can promise that every copy of Fable data stays in the EU, so keep EU-only work on Sonnet, Opus or Haiku.

A regional endpoint for one country is narrower, since Belgium (europe-west1) carries only older models such as Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.6, and the global endpoint gives no residency guarantee at all.¹⁴ Google's location page warns that endpoints alone do not guarantee residency, so check the residency table for your model rather than trusting the address.¹⁸

Claude in Microsoft Foundry has no EU zone yet

Claude in Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft's AI model service on its Azure cloud, comes only as Global Standard or US Data Zone Standard deployments, so inference runs worldwide or in the United States.²¹ Prompts and answers on deployments hosted on Azure stay within Azure, while usage metadata and content flagged by Anthropic's safety systems still go to Anthropic.²¹ Foundry is not an EU residency route for Claude on 13 October 2026 as a result.

Where EU residency stops: support access and remote reads

Residency answers where the model runs, while the GDPR also governs transfers, meaning personal data that reaches a country outside the European Economic Area. The European Data Protection Board, the body of the national data protection authorities in that area, counts remote access from outside it as a transfer, even for data in an EU region.²²³ Anthropic's privacy centre says it may process data for safety review, product support or incident response wherever it or its affiliates operate.⁴ Bedrock narrows the gap with zero operator access, meaning no AWS operator can read model inputs or outputs, although AWS may review flagged Fable traffic by hand.¹¹

A transfer impact assessment, meaning a written check of the destination country's law, answers whether US law can still reach the vendor, and our transfers guide walks through one. Residency answers one line of that assessment, where inference runs, and never replaces it.

Which Claude EU data residency route fits your business?

Pick Claude on Amazon Bedrock with the EU profile, called from Frankfurt or another EU region, when Sonnet, Opus or Haiku covers the work, at standard prices without the Global discount.¹³ On Google Cloud Vertex AI, pick the eu multi-region endpoint when your systems already run on Google Cloud, with the same three models, and check each model's row first, since Google says specific models may process locally in France or Germany.¹⁴ Keep Team seats and Fable 5.1 for work that no contract binds to the EU.

Take a hypothetical 40-person accounting firm in Rotterdam with Claude Team seats and one client contract that requires payroll data to stay inside the EU. In this made-up case a payroll specialist writes 30 summaries a month by hand at about 20 minutes each, because Team seats have no EU option. After the switch, a tool on Bedrock with the EU profile drafts each summary, and checking a draft takes about five minutes, so ten hours a month become two and a half. The specialist still reads every summary before it goes to the client. Someone also opens CloudTrail once a month to check the region field, because a developer chasing the 10% Global discount could swap the profile ID in one line.

How we set up Claude for European teams

We set up Claude Team seats with satori-claude for €490 once, plus €14 per user per month for admin, support and a quarterly report. Each Standard licence adds €22 per user per month, and that route runs on Team licences, which have no EU option.⁴ When a workflow must stay in the EU, the build runs on Bedrock or Google Cloud as a fixed-price project quoted after a scoping call. satori-run keeps the finished agent running from an indicative €230 a month per agent, while the Claude pricing page for Europe shows the full sum for a ten-person team. All satori. prices are fixed and exclude VAT. If you want the route chosen for you, book a free 30-minute call.

List every place your company sends prompts to Claude today, from Team seats and API keys to Bedrock and Google Cloud projects, and copy each inference location from the route table above. Twenty minutes gives you a table with one row per route, which a developer can later confirm from usage.inference_geo, the CloudTrail region field or the Google Cloud endpoint.¹¹³ That table belongs in your record of processing, meaning the register of data uses that Article 30 of the GDPR describes.²²

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Sources

Footnotes

1. Anthropic (2026). Data residency. Claude Platform Docs. https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/manage-claude/data-residency ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Anthropic (2025). Commercial Terms of Service. https://www.anthropic.com/legal/commercial-terms ↩

3. European Data Protection Board (2026). Our members. https://www.edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members_en ↩ ↩²

4. Anthropic (2026). Where are your servers located? Do you host your models on EU servers? Anthropic Privacy Center. https://privacy.claude.com/en/articles/7996890-where-are-your-servers-located-do-you-host-your-models-on-eu-servers ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. Anthropic (2026). How long do you store my organization's data? Anthropic Privacy Center. https://privacy.claude.com/en/articles/7996866-how-long-do-you-store-my-organization-s-data ↩ ↩²

6. Anthropic (2026). Enable US-only inference for your organization. Claude Help Center. https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15422948-enable-us-only-inference-for-your-organization ↩ ↩²

7. Anthropic (2026). Claude Platform on AWS. Claude Platform Docs. https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/claude-platform-on-aws ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. Amazon Web Services (2026). Regional availability by models. Amazon Bedrock User Guide. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/models-region-compatibility.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

9. Amazon Web Services (2026). Claude Sonnet 5.5 model card. Amazon Bedrock User Guide. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/model-card-anthropic-claude-sonnet-5-5.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

10. Amazon Web Services (2026). Geographic cross-Region inference. Amazon Bedrock User Guide. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/geographic-cross-region-inference.html ↩

11. Amazon Web Services (2026). Amazon Bedrock abuse detection. Amazon Bedrock User Guide. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/abuse-detection.html ↩ ↩² ↩³

12. Amazon Web Services (2026). Data protection. Amazon Bedrock User Guide. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/data-protection.html ↩

13. Amazon Web Services (2026). Route model inference requests across AWS Regions with cross-Region inference. Amazon Bedrock User Guide. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/cross-region-inference.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

14. Google Cloud (2026). Data residency. Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform documentation. https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/resources/data-residency ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

15. Anthropic (2026). Claude Code on Amazon Bedrock. Claude Code Docs. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/amazon-bedrock ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

16. Anthropic (2026). Claude Code overview. Claude Code Docs. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/overview ↩

17. Google Cloud (2026). Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform release notes, 22 April 2026. https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/release-notes ↩

18. Google Cloud (2026). Deployments and endpoints. Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform documentation. https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/resources/locations ↩ ↩²

19. Google Cloud (2026). Claude Fable 5.1 on Google Cloud. Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform documentation. https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/models/partner-models/claude/fable-5-1 ↩ ↩²

20. Google Cloud (2026). Abuse monitoring. Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform documentation. https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/models/abuse-monitoring ↩ ↩²

21. Anthropic (2026). Claude in Microsoft Foundry. Claude Platform Docs. https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/claude-in-microsoft-foundry ↩ ↩²

22. European Data Protection Board (2021). Recommendations 01/2020 on measures that supplement transfer tools, version 2.0. https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/2021-06/edpb_recommendations_202001vo.2.0_supplementarymeasurestransferstools_en.pdf ↩ ↩²