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

     gcloud init

  3. 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.

  For more information, see Set up authentication 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. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  3. 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.

  For more information, see Set up authentication 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. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  3. 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.

  For more information, see Set up authentication 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. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  3. 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.

  For more information, see Set up authentication 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. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

     gcloud init

  3. 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.

  For more information, see Set up authentication 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.

  Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:

  gcloud init

  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.

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.

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";
}

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;
    }
}

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
}

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;
  }
}

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
    """

    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

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

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

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"

$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

{
  "name": "projects/my-project/serviceAccounts/my-service-account@my-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com",
  "projectId": "my-project",
  "uniqueId": "123456789012345678901",
  "email": "my-service-account@my-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com",
  "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.