AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess

Summary

Provides full access to Amazon Elastic MapReduce and the underlying services it requires, such as EC2 and S3. AWS says this policy is on a deprecation path and points to the Amazon EMR documentation for guidance.

Permissions imported from the AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide; other sections reviewed against the listed AWS sources.

Identity

ARN

arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccessCopy ARN

Default version

v8

Created

2015-02-06

Last edited

2026-09-11

Services

cloudformation, cloudwatch, ec2, elasticmapreduce, iam, kms, s3, sdb

Control-plane actions (460)

By access level: 73 List, 35 Permissions management, 131 Read, 16 Tagging, 205 Write.

Data-plane actions (30)

By access level: 4 List, 3 Permissions management, 11 Read, 4 Tagging, 8 Write.

Excluded and conditional actions

No patterns are excluded by NotAction or Deny statements.

Resource scope and attachment

Resource scope across granted actions: all-resources.

Can be attached: Yes, to users, groups and roles.

Why this tier

• Grants at least 80% of the write and permissions-management actions of: cloudwatch (89 of 89), elasticmapreduce (54 of 54), s3 (84 of 84), sdb (7 of 7).
• Grants data-plane write actions on a data store on all resources without conditions.
• Grants iam:PassRole on all resources without conditions.
• 18 granted write or permissions-management actions have no data-plane classification from AWS, so the data-plane rule cannot assess them.

Guidance

Related policies

Same service

• AccessAnalyzerServiceRolePolicy
• AdministratorAccess-AWSElasticBeanstalk
• AmazonAppFlowFullAccess
• AmazonApplicationRecoveryControllerRegionSwitchPlanExecutionPolicy
• AmazonAppStreamServiceAccess
• AmazonAthenaServiceRolePolicy
• AmazonAuroraDSQLReadOnlyAccess
• AmazonBedrockStudioPermissionsBoundary

Same domain

• AdministratorAccess
• AdministratorAccess-Amplify
• AIDevOpsAgentActionsPolicy
• AmazonDataZoneProjectDeploymentPermissionsBoundary
• AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess
• AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess_v2
• AmazonDynamoDBFullAccesswithDataPipeline
• AmazonEC2RoleforDataPipelineRole

Frequently asked questions

When should I attach AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess?

AWS says this policy is on a deprecation path and links to the Amazon EMR documentation for guidance, so review that page before attaching it. The policy is meant for users, groups or roles that need full EMR access together with the EC2 and S3 actions it includes.

What does AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess grant?

It allows elasticmapreduce:*, s3:*, cloudwatch:* and sdb:* on all resources, EC2 actions to launch and manage instances and security groups, iam:PassRole, read actions for IAM policies and roles, kms:List*, and creating the EMR service-linked role.

What are the security risks of AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess?

It combines wildcard access to EMR and S3 with EC2 instance control and iam:PassRole on all resources without a service condition. AWS says the policy is on a deprecation path. AWS managed policies do not grant least privilege permissions, and an AWS update to the policy affects every identity it is attached to.

Policy JSON

Download policy.json

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": [
        "cloudwatch:*",
        "cloudformation:CreateStack",
        "cloudformation:DescribeStackEvents",
        "ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress",
        "ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress",
        "ec2:CancelSpotInstanceRequests",
        "ec2:CreateRoute",
        "ec2:CreateSecurityGroup",
        "ec2:CreateTags",
        "ec2:DeleteRoute",
        "ec2:DeleteTags",
        "ec2:DeleteSecurityGroup",
        "ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones",
        "ec2:DescribeAccountAttributes",
        "ec2:DescribeInstances",
        "ec2:DescribeKeyPairs",
        "ec2:DescribeRouteTables",
        "ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",
        "ec2:DescribeSpotInstanceRequests",
        "ec2:DescribeSpotPriceHistory",
        "ec2:DescribeSubnets",
        "ec2:DescribeVpcAttribute",
        "ec2:DescribeVpcs",
        "ec2:DescribeRouteTables",
        "ec2:DescribeNetworkAcls",
        "ec2:CreateVpcEndpoint",
        "ec2:ModifyImageAttribute",
        "ec2:ModifyInstanceAttribute",
        "ec2:RequestSpotInstances",
        "ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupEgress",
        "ec2:RunInstances",
        "ec2:TerminateInstances",
        "elasticmapreduce:*",
        "iam:GetPolicy",
        "iam:GetPolicyVersion",
        "iam:ListRoles",
        "iam:PassRole",
        "kms:List*",
        "s3:*",
        "sdb:*"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
          "iam:AWSServiceName": [
            "elasticmapreduce.amazonaws.com",
            "elasticmapreduce.amazonaws.com.cn"
          ]
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CloudFormationTagOnCreate",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "cloudformation:TagResource",
        "cloudformation:UntagResource"
      ],
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "cloudformation:CreateAction": [
            "CreateStack"
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Version history

Current version v8, edited by AWS on 2026-09-11. Version history is recorded from 2026-11-11. Earlier versions are in the IAM console under Policy versions.

Attach snippets

aws iam attach-role-policy --role-name ROLE_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess
aws iam attach-user-policy --user-name USER_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess
aws iam attach-group-policy --group-name GROUP_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess

Resources:
  ExampleRole:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Role
    Properties:
      AssumeRolePolicyDocument: {}  # replace with your trust policy
      ManagedPolicyArns:
        - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess

resource "aws_iam_role_policy_attachment" "amazonelasticmapreducefullaccess" {
  role       = aws_iam_role.example.name
  policy_arn = "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess"
}

role.addManagedPolicy(
  iam.ManagedPolicy.fromAwsManagedPolicyName("AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess"),
);

Sources

• AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess (AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-13; supports summary, practicalScope, useCases, securityConsiderations, assignmentGuidance, faqs)
• AWS managed policies for job functions (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports bestPractices, faqs)
• Managed policies and inline policies (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports securityConsiderations, faqs)
• Grant a user permissions to pass a role to an AWS service (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-13; supports securityConsiderations)

• Official AWS reference for AmazonElasticMapReduceFullAccess
• Report a data issue