Using service-linked roles for AWS Billing

AWS Billing uses AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) service-linked roles. A service-linked role is a unique type of IAM role that is linked directly to AWS Billing. Service-linked roles are predefined by AWS Billing and include all the permissions that the service requires to call other AWS services on your behalf.

A service-linked role makes setting up AWS Billing easier because you don’t have to manually add the necessary permissions. AWS Billing defines the permissions of its service-linked roles, and unless defined otherwise, only AWS Billing can assume its roles. The defined permissions include the trust policy and the permissions policy, and that permissions policy cannot be attached to any other IAM entity.

You can delete a service-linked role only after first deleting their related resources. This protects your AWS Billing resources because you can't inadvertently remove permission to access the resources.

For information about other services that support service-linked roles, see AWS services that work with IAM and look for the services that have Yes in the Service-linked roles column. Choose a Yes with a link to view the service-linked role documentation for that service.

Service-linked role permissions for AWS Billing

AWS Billing uses the service-linked role named Billing – Allows billing service to validate access to billing view data for derived billing views.

The Billing service-linked role trusts the following services to assume the role:

• billing.amazonaws.com

The role permissions policy named AWSBillingServiceRolePolicy allows AWS Billing to complete the following actions on the specified resources:

• Action: billing:GetBillingViewData on arn:${Partition}:billing:::billingview/*

You must configure permissions to allow your users, groups, or roles to create, edit, or delete a service-linked role. For more information, see Service-linked role permissions in the IAM User Guide.

Creating a service-linked role for AWS Billing

You don't need to manually create a service-linked role. When you create or associate a billing view using a billing view from a different account in the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS API, AWS Billing creates the service-linked role for you.

Important

This service-linked role can appear in your account if you completed an action in another service that uses the features supported by this role. Also, if you were using the AWS Billing service before January 1, 2017, when it began supporting service-linked roles, then AWS Billing created the Billing role in your account. To learn more, see A new role appeared in my AWS account.

Editing a service-linked role for AWS Billing

AWS Billing does not allow you to edit the Billing service-linked role. After you create a service-linked role, you cannot change the name of the role because various entities might reference the role. However, you can edit the description of the role using IAM. For more information, see Editing a service-linked role in the IAM User Guide.

Deleting a service-linked role for AWS Billing

If you no longer need to use a feature or service that requires a service-linked role, we recommend that you delete that role. That way you don’t have an unused entity that is not actively monitored or maintained. However, you must clean up your service-linked role before you can manually delete it.

Manually delete the service-linked role

Use the IAM console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS API to delete the Billing service-linked role. For more information, see Deleting a service-linked role in the IAM User Guide.

Supported Regions for AWS Billing service-linked roles

AWS Billing supports using service-linked roles in all of the Regions where the service is available. For more information, see AWS Regions and endpoints.