CloudWatchFullAccessV2

Summary

Provides full access to CloudWatch. The Amazon CloudWatch User Guide says it grants full access to CloudWatch actions and resources, more properly scopes the permissions granted for other services such as Amazon SNS and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, and recommends it instead of CloudWatchFullAccess.

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

Identity

ARN

arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/CloudWatchFullAccessV2Copy ARN

Default version

v18

Created

2023-08-01

Last edited

2026-10-20

Services

application-autoscaling, application-signals, autoscaling, cloudtrail, cloudwatch, iam, kms, logs, oam, observabilityadmin, resource-explorer-2, rum, s3tables, servicequotas, sns, synthetics, xray

Control-plane actions (467)

By access level: 85 List, 12 Permissions management, 130 Read, 16 Tagging, 224 Write.

Data-plane actions (20)

By access level: 4 List, 11 Read, 5 Write.

Excluded and conditional actions

No patterns are excluded by NotAction or Deny statements.

Resource scope and attachment

Resource scope across granted actions: mixed.

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

Why this tier

• Grants at least 80% of the write and permissions-management actions of: application-signals (12 of 12), cloudwatch (89 of 89), logs (70 of 70), observabilityadmin (23 of 23), rum (11 of 11), synthetics (10 of 10), xray (17 of 17).
• Grants iam:PassRole, but only for scoped roles or under conditions (for example iam:PassedToService).

Guidance

Related policies

Same service

• AlexaForBusinessGatewayExecution
• AmazonAPIGatewayPushToCloudWatchLogs
• AmazonApplicationRecoveryControllerRegionSwitchPlanExecutionPolicy
• AmazonAthenaServiceRolePolicy
• AmazonAuroraDSQLReadOnlyAccess
• AmazonBraketFullAccess
• AmazonBraketJobsExecutionPolicy
• AmazonBraketServiceRolePolicy

Same domain

• AmazonCloudWatchEvidentlyFullAccess
• AmazonCloudWatchRUMFullAccess
• AmazonCloudWatchRUMReadOnlyAccess
• AmazonCloudWatchRUMServiceRolePolicy
• AmazonCognitoUnauthenticatedIdentities
• AmazonDevOpsGuruConsoleFullAccess
• AmazonDevOpsGuruFullAccess
• AmazonDevOpsGuruReadOnlyAccess

Frequently asked questions

When should I attach CloudWatchFullAccessV2?

The reference page says you can attach CloudWatchFullAccessV2 to your users, groups and roles and describes it as providing full access to CloudWatch. The CloudWatch User Guide recommends using it instead of CloudWatchFullAccess.

What does CloudWatchFullAccessV2 grant?

It allows full actions for CloudWatch, Logs, Application Signals, RUM, Synthetics and X-Ray on all resources, 45 observabilityadmin actions, selected sns, autoscaling and iam actions, service-linked role creation, iam:PassRole under conditions, and s3tables, CloudTrail, Service Quotas and Resource Explorer actions.

What are the security risks of CloudWatchFullAccessV2?

Wildcards across CloudWatch, Logs, Application Signals, RUM, Synthetics and X-Ray allow every action, including writes and deletes. It also allows organization-scoped observabilityadmin changes and iam:PassRole. AWS managed policies don't grant least privilege permissions, and you must consider the security risk of granting principals more permissions than they need. AWS updates to the policy affect every identity it is attached to.

Policy JSON

Download policy.json

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "CloudWatchFullAccessPermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "application-autoscaling:DescribeScalingPolicies",
        "application-signals:*",
        "autoscaling:DescribeAutoScalingGroups",
        "autoscaling:DescribePolicies",
        "cloudwatch:*",
        "logs:*",
        "sns:CreateTopic",
        "sns:ListSubscriptions",
        "sns:ListSubscriptionsByTopic",
        "sns:ListTopics",
        "sns:Subscribe",
        "iam:GetPolicy",
        "iam:GetPolicyVersion",
        "iam:GetRole",
        "oam:ListSinks",
        "observabilityadmin:GetCentralizationRuleForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:ListCentralizationRulesForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:CreateCentralizationRuleForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:UpdateCentralizationRuleForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:DeleteCentralizationRuleForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:StartTelemetryEvaluation",
        "observabilityadmin:GetTelemetryEvaluationStatus",
        "observabilityadmin:ListResourceTelemetry",
        "observabilityadmin:StopTelemetryEvaluation",
        "observabilityadmin:StartTelemetryEvaluationForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:GetTelemetryEvaluationStatusForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:ListResourceTelemetryForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:StopTelemetryEvaluationForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:CreateTelemetryRule",
        "observabilityadmin:GetTelemetryRule",
        "observabilityadmin:ListTelemetryRules",
        "observabilityadmin:UpdateTelemetryRule",
        "observabilityadmin:DeleteTelemetryRule",
        "observabilityadmin:CreateTelemetryRuleForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:GetTelemetryRuleForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:ListTelemetryRulesForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:UpdateTelemetryRuleForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:DeleteTelemetryRuleForOrganization",
        "observabilityadmin:GetTelemetryEnrichmentStatus",
        "observabilityadmin:StartTelemetryEnrichment",
        "observabilityadmin:StopTelemetryEnrichment",
        "observabilityadmin:TagResource",
        "observabilityadmin:UntagResource",
        "observabilityadmin:ListTagsForResource",
        "observabilityadmin:CreateTelemetryPipeline",
        "observabilityadmin:GetTelemetryPipeline",
        "observabilityadmin:UpdateTelemetryPipeline",
        "observabilityadmin:DeleteTelemetryPipeline",
        "observabilityadmin:ListTelemetryPipelines",
        "observabilityadmin:TestTelemetryPipeline",
        "observabilityadmin:ValidateTelemetryPipelineConfiguration",
        "observabilityadmin:CreateS3TableIntegration",
        "observabilityadmin:GetS3TableIntegration",
        "observabilityadmin:ListS3TableIntegrations",
        "observabilityadmin:DeleteS3TableIntegration",
        "observabilityadmin:CreateDatasetIntegration",
        "observabilityadmin:GetDatasetIntegration",
        "observabilityadmin:ListDatasetIntegrations",
        "observabilityadmin:UpdateDatasetIntegration",
        "observabilityadmin:DeleteDatasetIntegration",
        "rum:*",
        "synthetics:*",
        "xray:*"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CloudWatchApplicationSignalsServiceLinkedRolePermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/application-signals.cloudwatch.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForCloudWatchApplicationSignals",
      "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
          "iam:AWSServiceName": "application-signals.cloudwatch.amazonaws.com"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Sid": "EventsServicePermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/events.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForCloudWatchEvents*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
          "iam:AWSServiceName": "events.amazonaws.com"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Sid": "OAMReadPermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "oam:ListAttachedLinks"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:oam:*:*:sink/*"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CloudWatchCloudTrailPermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "cloudtrail:CreateServiceLinkedChannel",
        "cloudtrail:GetChannel"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:cloudtrail:*:*:channel/aws-service-channel/application-signals/*"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CloudWatchApplicationSignalsCloudTrailListPermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "cloudtrail:ListChannels"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CloudWatchServiceQuotaPermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "servicequotas:GetServiceQuota"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:servicequotas:*:*:s3/*",
        "arn:aws:servicequotas:*:*:dynamodb/*",
        "arn:aws:servicequotas:*:*:kinesis/*",
        "arn:aws:servicequotas:*:*:sns/*",
        "arn:aws:servicequotas:*:*:bedrock/*",
        "arn:aws:servicequotas:*:*:lambda/*",
        "arn:aws:servicequotas:*:*:fargate/*",
        "arn:aws:servicequotas:*:*:elasticloadbalancing/*",
        "arn:aws:servicequotas:*:*:ec2/*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CloudWatchResourceExplorerPermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "resource-explorer-2:ListIndexes",
        "resource-explorer-2:Search"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:resource-explorer-2:*::view/AWSServiceViewForApplicationSignals/service-view",
        "arn:aws:resource-explorer-2:*::view/AWSServiceViewForApplicationSignalsOrgScopeProd/service-view"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CloudWatchResourceExplorerSLRPermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/resource-explorer-2.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForResourceExplorer",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "iam:AWSServiceName": [
            "resource-explorer-2.amazonaws.com"
          ]
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CloudWatchResourceExplorerCreateIndexPermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "resource-explorer-2:CreateIndex"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:resource-explorer-2:*:*:index/*"
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:PassRole",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "iam:PassedToService": "logs.amazonaws.com"
        },
        "ArnLike": {
          "iam:AssociatedResourceArn": "arn:aws:observabilityadmin:*:*:s3tableintegration/*"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:PassRole",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "iam:PassedToService": [
            "logs.amazonaws.com",
            "telemetry-pipelines.observabilityadmin.amazonaws.com"
          ]
        },
        "ArnLike": {
          "iam:AssociatedResourceArn": "arn:aws:observabilityadmin:*:*:telemetry-pipeline/*"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3tables:CreateTableBucket",
        "s3tables:PutTableBucketEncryption"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:s3tables:*:*:bucket/aws-cloudwatch",
      "Condition": {
        "ForAnyValue:StringEquals": {
          "aws:CalledVia": "observabilityadmin.amazonaws.com"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3tables:PutTableBucketPolicy"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:s3tables:*:*:bucket/aws-cloudwatch"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "LogAlarmScheduledQueryPassRolePermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:PassRole",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "iam:PassedToService": "logs.amazonaws.com"
        },
        "ArnLike": {
          "iam:AssociatedResourceArn": "arn:aws:logs:*:*:scheduled-query:*"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Sid": "LogAlarmLogLinesPassRolePermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:PassRole",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "iam:PassedToService": "cloudwatch.amazonaws.com"
        },
        "ArnLike": {
          "iam:AssociatedResourceArn": "arn:aws:cloudwatch:*:*:alarm:*"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CloudWatchLogsKmsDescribeKeyPermissions",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "kms:DescribeKey",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:kms:*:*:key/*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
          "kms:ViaService": "logs.*.amazonaws.com"
        },
        "StringEquals": {
          "aws:ResourceAccount": "${aws:PrincipalAccount}"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Version history

Current version v18, edited by AWS on 2026-10-20. 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/CloudWatchFullAccessV2
aws iam attach-user-policy --user-name USER_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/CloudWatchFullAccessV2
aws iam attach-group-policy --group-name GROUP_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/CloudWatchFullAccessV2

Resources:
  ExampleRole:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Role
    Properties:
      AssumeRolePolicyDocument: {}  # replace with your trust policy
      ManagedPolicyArns:
        - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/CloudWatchFullAccessV2

resource "aws_iam_role_policy_attachment" "cloudwatchfullaccessv2" {
  role       = aws_iam_role.example.name
  policy_arn = "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/CloudWatchFullAccessV2"
}

role.addManagedPolicy(
  iam.ManagedPolicy.fromAwsManagedPolicyName("CloudWatchFullAccessV2"),
);

Sources

• CloudWatchFullAccessV2 (AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-13; supports summary, practicalScope, useCases, securityConsiderations, assignmentGuidance, faqs)
• AWS managed policies for CloudWatch (Amazon CloudWatch User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-13; supports summary, useCases, assignmentGuidance, faqs)
• Grant a user permissions to pass a role to an AWS service (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-13; supports securityConsiderations)
• Managed policies and inline policies (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports securityConsiderations, faqs)
• AWS managed policies for job functions (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports bestPractices, faqs)

• Official AWS reference for CloudWatchFullAccessV2
• AWS service guide
• Report a data issue