Create service accounts

This page explains how to create service accounts using the Identity and Access Management (IAM) API, the Google Cloud console, and the gcloud command- line tool.

By default, each project can have up to 100 service accounts that control access to your resources. You can request a quota increase if necessary. Learn more about quotas and limits.

Before you begin

• Enable the IAM API.

  Enable the API

• Set up authentication.

  Select the tab for how you plan to use the samples on this page:

  Console

  When you use the Google Cloud console to access Google Cloud services and APIs, you don't need to set up authentication.

  gcloud

  In the Google Cloud console, activate Cloud Shell.

  Activate Cloud Shell

  At the bottom of the Google Cloud console, a Cloud Shell session starts and displays a command-line prompt. Cloud Shell is a shell environment with the Google Cloud CLI already installed and with values already set for your current project. It can take a few seconds for the session to initialize.

  C#

  To use the .NET samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

  3. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  4. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

     If an authentication error is returned, and you are using an external identity provider (IdP), confirm that you have signed in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

  For more information, see Set up ADC for a local development environment in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.

  C++

  To use the C++ samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

  3. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  4. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

     If an authentication error is returned, and you are using an external identity provider (IdP), confirm that you have signed in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

  For more information, see Set up ADC for a local development environment in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.

  Go

  To use the Go samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

  3. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  4. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

     If an authentication error is returned, and you are using an external identity provider (IdP), confirm that you have signed in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

  For more information, see Set up ADC for a local development environment in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.

  Java

  To use the Java samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

  3. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  4. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

     If an authentication error is returned, and you are using an external identity provider (IdP), confirm that you have signed in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

  For more information, see Set up ADC for a local development environment in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.

  Python

  To use the Python samples on this page in a local development environment, install and initialize the gcloud CLI, and then set up Application Default Credentials with your user credentials.

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

  2. If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

  3. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  4. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

     gcloud auth application-default login

     You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

     If an authentication error is returned, and you are using an external identity provider (IdP), confirm that you have signed in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

  For more information, see Set up ADC for a local development environment in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.

  REST

  To use the REST API samples on this page in a local development environment, you use the credentials you provide to the gcloud CLI.

  After installing the Google Cloud CLI, initialize it by running the following command:

  gcloud init

  If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

  For more information, see Authenticate for using REST in the Google Cloud authentication documentation.

• Understand IAM service accounts

Required roles

To get the permissions that you need to create service accounts, ask your administrator to grant you the Create Service Accounts (roles/iam.serviceAccountCreator) IAM role on the project. For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

You might also be able to get the required permissions through custom roles or other predefined roles.

Note: IAM basic roles might also contain permissions to create service accounts. You shouldn't grant basic roles in a production environment, but you can grant them in a development or test environment.

If you want to grant newly created service accounts access to your project, you also need the Project IAM admin (roles/resourcemanager.projectIamAdmin) role.

Create a service account

When you create a service account, you must provide an alphanumeric ID (SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME in the samples below), such as my-service-account. The ID must be between 6 and 30 characters, and can contain lowercase alphanumeric characters and dashes. After you create a service account, you cannot change its name.

The service account's name appears in the email address that is provisioned during creation, in the format SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME@PROJECT_ID.iam.gserviceaccount.com.

Each service account also has a permanent, unique numeric ID, which is generated automatically.

You also provide the following information when you create a service account:

• DESCRIPTION is an optional description for the service account.
• DISPLAY_NAME is a friendly name for the service account.
• PROJECT_ID is the ID of your Google Cloud project.

After you create a service account, you might need to wait for 60 seconds or more before you use the service account. This behavior occurs because read operations are eventually consistent; it can take time for the new service account to become visible. If you try to read or use a service account immediately after you create it, and you receive an error, you can retry the request with exponential backoff.

Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Create service account page.

   Go to Create service account

   The remaining steps appear in the Google Cloud console.

2. Select a Google Cloud project.
3. Enter a service account name to display in the Google Cloud console.

   The Google Cloud console generates a service account ID based on this name. Edit the ID if necessary. You cannot change the ID later.

4. Optional: Enter a description of the service account.
5. If you don't want to set access controls now, click Done to finish creating the service account. To set access controls now, click Create and continue and continue to the next step.
6. Optional: Choose one or more IAM roles to grant to the service account on the project.
7. When you are done adding roles, click Continue.
8. Optional: In the Service account users role field, add members that need to attach the service account to other resources.
9. Optional: In the Service account admins role field, add members that need to manage the service account.
10. Click Done to finish creating the service account.

gcloud

2. In the Google Cloud console, activate Cloud Shell.

   Activate Cloud Shell

   At the bottom of the Google Cloud console, a Cloud Shell session starts and displays a command-line prompt. Cloud Shell is a shell environment with the Google Cloud CLI already installed and with values already set for your current project. It can take a few seconds for the session to initialize.

3. To create the service account, run the gcloud iam service-accounts create command:

   gcloud iam service-accounts create SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME \
     --description="DESCRIPTION" \
     --display-name="DISPLAY_NAME"

   Replace the following values:

   • SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME: the name of the service account

   • DESCRIPTION: an optional description of the service account

   • DISPLAY_NAME: a service account name to display in the Google Cloud console

4. Optional: To grant your service account an IAM role on your project, run the gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding command:

   gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID \
     --member="serviceAccount:SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME@PROJECT_ID.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \
     --role="ROLE_NAME"

   Replace the following values:

   • PROJECT_ID: the project ID

   • SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME: the name of the service account

   • ROLE_NAME: a role name, such as roles/compute.osLogin

5. Optional: To allow users to attach the service account to other resources, run the gcloud iam service-accounts add-iam-policy-binding command to grant a user the Service Account User role (roles/iam.serviceAccountUser) on the service account:

   gcloud iam service-accounts add-iam-policy-binding \
     SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME@PROJECT_ID.iam.gserviceaccount.com \
     --member="user:USER_EMAIL" \
     --role="roles/iam.serviceAccountUser"

   Replace the following values:

   • PROJECT_ID: the project ID

   • SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME: the name of the service account

   • USER_EMAIL: the email address for the user

C++

To learn how to install and use the client library for IAM, see IAM client libraries. For more information, see the IAM C++ API reference documentation.

To authenticate to IAM, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Before you begin.

namespace iam = ::google::cloud::iam_admin_v1;
[](std::string const& project_id, std::string const& account_id,
   std::string const& display_name, std::string const& description) {
  iam::IAMClient client(iam::MakeIAMConnection());
  google::iam::admin::v1::ServiceAccount service_account;
  service_account.set_display_name(display_name);
  service_account.set_description(description);
  auto response = client.CreateServiceAccount("projects/" + project_id,
                                              account_id, service_account);
  if (!response) throw std::move(response).status();
  std::cout << "ServiceAccount successfully created: "
            << response->DebugString() << "\n";
}

C#

To learn how to install and use the client library for IAM, see IAM client libraries. For more information, see the IAM C# API reference documentation.

To authenticate to IAM, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Before you begin.

using System;
using Google.Apis.Auth.OAuth2;
using Google.Apis.Iam.v1;
using Google.Apis.Iam.v1.Data;

public partial class ServiceAccounts
{
    public static ServiceAccount CreateServiceAccount(string projectId,
        string name, string displayName)
    {
        var credential = GoogleCredential.GetApplicationDefault()
            .CreateScoped(IamService.Scope.CloudPlatform);
        var service = new IamService(new IamService.Initializer
        {
            HttpClientInitializer = credential
        });

        var request = new CreateServiceAccountRequest
        {
            AccountId = name,
            ServiceAccount = new ServiceAccount
            {
                DisplayName = displayName
            }
        };
        var serviceAccount = service.Projects.ServiceAccounts.Create(
            request, "projects/" + projectId).Execute();
        Console.WriteLine("Created service account: " + serviceAccount.Email);
        return serviceAccount;
    }
}

Go

To learn how to install and use the client library for IAM, see IAM client libraries. For more information, see the IAM Go API reference documentation.

To authenticate to IAM, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Before you begin.

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"io"

	iam "google.golang.org/api/iam/v1"
)

// createServiceAccount creates a service account.
func createServiceAccount(w io.Writer, projectID, name, displayName string) (*iam.ServiceAccount, error) {
	ctx := context.Background()
	service, err := iam.NewService(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("iam.NewService: %w", err)
	}

	request := &iam.CreateServiceAccountRequest{
		AccountId: name,
		ServiceAccount: &iam.ServiceAccount{
			DisplayName: displayName,
		},
	}
	account, err := service.Projects.ServiceAccounts.Create("projects/"+projectID, request).Do()
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("Projects.ServiceAccounts.Create: %w", err)
	}
	fmt.Fprintf(w, "Created service account: %v", account)
	return account, nil
}

Java

To learn how to install and use the client library for IAM, see IAM client libraries. For more information, see the IAM Java API reference documentation.

To authenticate to IAM, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Before you begin.

import com.google.cloud.iam.admin.v1.IAMClient;
import com.google.iam.admin.v1.CreateServiceAccountRequest;
import com.google.iam.admin.v1.ProjectName;
import com.google.iam.admin.v1.ServiceAccount;
import java.io.IOException;

public class CreateServiceAccount {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    // TODO(developer): Replace the variables before running the sample.
    String projectId = "your-project-id";
    String serviceAccountName = "my-service-account-name";

    createServiceAccount(projectId, serviceAccountName);
  }

  // Creates a service account.
  public static ServiceAccount createServiceAccount(String projectId, String serviceAccountName)
          throws IOException {
    ServiceAccount serviceAccount = ServiceAccount
            .newBuilder()
            .setDisplayName("your-display-name")
            .build();
    CreateServiceAccountRequest request = CreateServiceAccountRequest.newBuilder()
            .setName(ProjectName.of(projectId).toString())
            .setAccountId(serviceAccountName)
            .setServiceAccount(serviceAccount)
            .build();
    // Initialize client that will be used to send requests.
    // This client only needs to be created once, and can be reused for multiple requests.
    try (IAMClient iamClient = IAMClient.create()) {
      serviceAccount = iamClient.createServiceAccount(request);
      System.out.println("Created service account: " + serviceAccount.getEmail());
    }
    return serviceAccount;
  }
}

Python

To learn how to install and use the client library for IAM, see IAM client libraries. For more information, see the IAM Python API reference documentation.

To authenticate to IAM, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Before you begin.

from typing import Optional

from google.cloud import iam_admin_v1
from google.cloud.iam_admin_v1 import types


def create_service_account(
    project_id: str, account_id: str, display_name: Optional[str] = None
) -> types.ServiceAccount:
    """Creates a service account.

    project_id: ID or number of the Google Cloud project you want to use.
    account_id: ID which will be unique identifier of the service account
    display_name (optional): human-readable name, which will be assigned
        to the service account

    return: ServiceAccount
    """

    iam_admin_client = iam_admin_v1.IAMClient()
    request = types.CreateServiceAccountRequest()

    request.account_id = account_id
    request.name = f"projects/{project_id}"

    service_account = types.ServiceAccount()
    service_account.display_name = display_name
    request.service_account = service_account

    account = iam_admin_client.create_service_account(request=request)

    print(f"Created a service account: {account.email}")
    return account

REST

The serviceAccounts.create method creates a service account.

Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

• PROJECT_ID: Your Google Cloud project ID. Project IDs are alphanumeric strings, like my-project.
• SA_NAME: The alphanumeric ID of your service account. This name must be between 6 and 30 characters, and can contain lowercase alphanumeric characters and dashes.
• SA_DESCRIPTION: Optional. A description for the service account.
• SA_DISPLAY_NAME: A human-readable name for the service account.

HTTP method and URL:

POST https://iam.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/serviceAccounts

Request JSON body:

{
  "accountId": "SA_NAME",
  "serviceAccount": {
    "description": "SA_DESCRIPTION",
    "displayName": "SA_DISPLAY_NAME"
  }
}

To send your request, expand one of these options:

curl (Linux, macOS, or Cloud Shell)

Note: The following command assumes that you have logged in to the gcloud CLI with your user account by running gcloud init or gcloud auth login , or by using Cloud Shell, which automatically logs you into the gcloud CLI . You can check the currently active account by running gcloud auth list.

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

curl -X POST \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8" \
     -d @request.json \
     "https://iam.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/serviceAccounts"

PowerShell (Windows)

Note: The following command assumes that you have logged in to the gcloud CLI with your user account by running gcloud init or gcloud auth login . You can check the currently active account by running gcloud auth list.

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

$cred = gcloud auth print-access-token
$headers = @{ "Authorization" = "Bearer $cred" }

Invoke-WebRequest `
    -Method POST `
    -Headers $headers `
    -ContentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8" `
    -InFile request.json `
    -Uri "https://iam.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/serviceAccounts" | Select-Object -Expand Content

APIs Explorer (browser)

Copy the request body and open the method reference page. The APIs Explorer panel opens on the right side of the page. You can interact with this tool to send requests. Paste the request body in this tool, complete any other required fields, and click Execute.

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following:

{
  "name": "projects/my-project/serviceAccounts/[e-mail]",
  "projectId": "my-project",
  "uniqueId": "123456789012345678901",
  "email": "[e-mail]",
  "displayName": "My service account",
  "etag": "BwUp3rVlzes=",
  "description": "A service account for running jobs in my project",
  "oauth2ClientId": "987654321098765432109"
}

After you create a service account, grant one or more roles to the service account so that it can act on your behalf.

Also, if the service account needs to access resources in other projects, you usually must enable the APIs for those resources in the project where you created the service account.

What's next

• Learn how to list and edit service accounts.
• Review the process for granting IAM roles to all types of principals, including service accounts.
• Understand how to attach service accounts to resources.

Try it for yourself

If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

Get started for free