Tasks that require root user credentials

Important

Having trouble signing in to AWS? Make sure that you're on the correct AWS sign-in page for your type of user. If you are the AWS account root user (account owner), you can sign in to AWS using the credentials that you set up when you created the AWS account. If you are an IAM user, your account administrator can give you the credentials that you can use to sign in to AWS. If you need to request support, do not use the feedback link on this page, as the form is received by the AWS Documentation team, not AWS Support. Instead, on the Contact Us page choose Still unable to log into your AWS account and then choose one of the available support options.

We recommend that you configure an administrative user in AWS IAM Identity Center to perform daily tasks and access AWS resources. However, you can perform the tasks listed below only when you sign in as the root user of an account.

Account Management Tasks

• Change your account settings. This includes the account name, email address, root user password, and root user access keys. Other account settings, such as contact information, payment currency preference, and AWS Regions, don't require root user credentials.

• Restore IAM user permissions. If the only IAM administrator accidentally revokes their own permissions, you can sign in as the root user to edit policies and restore those permissions.

• Close your AWS account.

  For more information, see the following topics:

  • How do I assign ownership of my AWS account to another entity?.

  • How do I close my AWS account?.

  • Close a standalone AWS account.

Billing Tasks

• Activate IAM access to the Billing and Cost Management console.

• Some Billing tasks are limited to the root user. See Managing an AWS account in AWS Billing User Guide for more information.

• View certain tax invoices. An IAM user with the aws-portal:ViewBilling permission can view and download VAT invoices from AWS Europe, but not AWS Inc. or Amazon Internet Services Private Limited (AISPL).

AWS GovCloud (US) Tasks

• Sign up for AWS GovCloud (US).

• Request AWS GovCloud (US) account root user access keys from AWS Support.

• In the event that an AWS Key Management Service key becomes unmanageable, you can recover it by contacting AWS Support as the root user.

Amazon EC2 Task

• Register as a seller in the Reserved Instance Marketplace.

Amazon Mechanical Turk Task

• Link Your AWS account to your MTurk Requester account.

Amazon Simple Storage Service Tasks

• Configure an Amazon S3 bucket to enable MFA (multi-factor authentication).

• Edit or delete an Amazon S3 bucket policy that denies all principals.

Amazon Simple Queue Service Task

• Edit or delete an Amazon SQS resource policy that denies all principals.