IAM Managed Policy Limit Doubles from 10 to 20!

Hey everyone, it's Shii-chan! I found a small but genuinely useful update today — an IAM quota just got roomier. Let me walk you through it!

AWS What's New aws.amazon.com

What was announced?

This comes from AWS What's New, the channel that keeps us posted on new features and updates. AWS IAM raised the default limit on managed policies you can attach to a single role, from 10 to 20.

The story so far

Until now, you could only attach up to 10 managed policies per role. If you followed the best practice of splitting permissions into purpose-specific policies, or adopted an AWS Partner product that required attaching several managed policies, you'd hit that limit fast and need to file a Service Quotas increase request.

What changes

With the new default of 20, you can design more granular, purpose-specific policies without immediately running into a wall or filing a request. The change applies automatically — existing roles in your account already have the higher limit with no action needed. If you need even more, you can request up to 25 through Service Quotas.

Dive Deep

This applies across all commercial AWS Regions, plus AWS GovCloud (US) and the China Regions. If you're curious about other IAM-related quotas, they're all listed in the IAM and AWS STS quotas documentation.

Wrap-up

• The default limit on managed policies per IAM role doubled from 10 to 20
• Already applied automatically to existing roles — no action required
• You can request up to 25 via Service Quotas if you need more
• Covers commercial Regions, GovCloud (US), and the China Regions

A small but welcome update for IAM admins who like keeping their policies granular!