- What Amazon Mechanical Turk was
- The MTurk closure timeline
- What workers need to do now
- Will you be paid for HITs you already finished?
- Tax documents after the closure
- If you were a Requester
- Can you still join MTurk from India or Pakistan?
- Where former MTurk workers can look next
- My verdict
- Frequently asked questions
Yes. Amazon Mechanical Turk closed permanently on September 30, 2026, and no new HITs can be submitted. If you were a worker, the date that matters now is October 30, 2026: that's the deadline to confirm your payment method and transfer schedule in the Worker Portal so your remaining earnings reach you.
For years, MTurk was the first platform anyone mentioned for micro-tasks, so its closure has left a lot of workers searching for what happens to their balance. The good news is that MTurk has published a clear closure FAQ. Here's what it says, and what to do before the final deadlines pass.
What Amazon Mechanical Turk was
MTurk was a crowdsourcing website run under Amazon Web Services. Businesses, called requesters, posted small jobs known as Human Intelligence Tasks, or HITs: identifying something in an image or video, writing a product description, answering a survey. Workers, nicknamed Turkers, picked the HITs they wanted and were paid a fee set by the requester. It launched in 2005, and Amazon even coined a phrase for the idea, "artificial" artificial intelligence, meaning work handed to people because they could do it faster than a computer.
The name was borrowed from the Mechanical Turk, an 18th-century chess-playing automaton that toured Europe and turned out to be operated by a human chess master hidden inside the cabinet. It's an apt name for a service that quietly supplied human judgement behind a lot of software, and it's part of why the closure affects people well beyond the workers themselves.
The MTurk closure timeline
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| September 30, 2026 | MTurk permanently closed; HIT submission ended and unsubmitted HITs expired automatically |
| October 30, 2026 | Last day for workers to verify payment preferences in the Worker Portal |
| October 30, 2026 | Last day for Requesters to approve or reject completed HITs and award bonuses |
| After October 30, 2026 | Pending HITs with no action are auto-approved; payment changes go through Customer Service |
| January 28, 2027 | Transaction history stops being available |
What workers need to do now
- Log in to the MTurk Worker Portal.
- Check you have a payment method set up.
- Check you have a payment frequency. If you never set a transfer schedule, go to Account Settings, then Manage Payment Preferences, and choose one.
- Do this by October 30, 2026. After that, MTurk says you'll need to contact Customer Service to change payment details.
- Download or note your transaction history before January 28, 2027.
MTurk says payments will be distributed on your existing payment schedule. If your money doesn't arrive in that time, contact MTurk Customer Service. Make a note of what you're owed today, with screenshots of your balance and recent HITs, so you have your own record if you ever need to raise a query after the portal stops changing.
Will you be paid for HITs you already finished?
Yes. MTurk says all remaining completed and approved HITs will be paid during your normal scheduled disbursement. For HITs still waiting for approval, Requesters have 30 days, until October 30, 2026, to approve or reject them under the standard HIT approval policy. If a Requester does nothing, the HIT is auto-approved.
Bonuses are still possible too. MTurk says Requesters can award bonuses for completed HITs until October 30, 2026. Anything you hadn't submitted by September 30 expired automatically and won't be paid.
Tax documents after the closure
MTurk says it will still send tax-related documents through its established processes and deadlines. Keep the email address on your account working, and save your transaction history while you still can, because it disappears after January 28, 2027.
If you were a Requester
- Verify your payment information in the Requester Portal by October 30, 2026, so refunds process on time.
- Expect a full refund of any pre-paid balance within 30 days of the September 30 closure, and contact Customer Service if it doesn't arrive.
- Your final bill arrives in the billing cycles following the closure.
- You won't be charged for HITs that were never completed.
The closure also reaches beyond MTurk itself. MTurk says the Amazon Mechanical Turk Worker type is no longer available for labeling jobs in SageMaker Ground Truth or human review workflows in Amazon Augmented AI.
Can you still join MTurk from India or Pakistan?
No, and that applies everywhere. Plenty of people in India and Pakistan still search for how to sign up for Amazon Mechanical Turk, often after watching older videos. Since September 30, 2026, there's no service to join: HIT submission has ended for everyone, in every country. MTurk's closure FAQ only covers paying out existing workers and refunding Requesters, with no new sign-ups of any kind, so treat any website, app or agent offering MTurk registration, account approval or a ready-made MTurk account with deep suspicion.
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Where former MTurk workers can look next
I won't pretend there's a like-for-like replacement, and I'd be wary of anyone who says there is, but research studies and user testing are the closest kinds of paid online task work still running. My guides to how much Prolific pays and how much UserTesting pays explain how those platforms reward participants, and my list of remote jobs with no experience covers steadier options.
Be wary of anyone claiming to be the new MTurk or asking for a fee to move your account. MTurk's closure FAQ mentions no transfer of accounts or balances to any other service, so treat those messages as scams.
My verdict
Amazon Mechanical Turk is gone for good, and the one thing that matters for workers is getting paid out. Log in, confirm your payment method and transfer schedule before October 30, 2026, save your history before January 28, 2027, and contact Customer Service if a scheduled payment doesn't land. Then move on to platforms that are still open, and keep your MTurk records somewhere safe for your own tax return.
Frequently asked questions
When did Amazon Mechanical Turk close?
MTurk permanently closed on September 30, 2026, when HIT submission ended.
How do I get my remaining MTurk money?
Verify your payment method and transfer schedule in the Worker Portal by October 30, 2026. MTurk says payments go out on your existing schedule.
Will pending MTurk HITs be paid?
Requesters have until October 30, 2026 to approve or reject completed HITs. If they take no action, the HITs are auto-approved.
Can I still see my MTurk transaction history?
Yes, until January 28, 2027, according to MTurk's closure FAQ.
Does the MTurk closure affect SageMaker Ground Truth?
Yes. MTurk says the Amazon Mechanical Turk Worker type is no longer available for Ground Truth labeling jobs or Amazon Augmented AI reviews.
