Why do I need an SNS topic policy?

By default, only the topic owner can publish or subscribe. If you need other AWS accounts or services (like S3, CloudWatch, or EventBridge) to interact with your topic, you must add a resource-based policy granting them explicit permission.

Can I combine SNS topic policies with IAM policies?

Yes. SNS evaluates both the topic's resource-based policy and the caller's IAM policy. Access is granted if either policy allows it, unless there is an explicit deny. For cross-account access, both the topic policy and the caller's IAM policy must allow the action.

AWS SNS Topic Policy Builder

IAM & SecurityAWS

Build SNS topic access policies for cross-account and service publishing.

SNS Topic Policy Configuration

Topic ARN

Statement 1

SID (optional)

Effect

Principal

Actions (comma-separated)

Condition Operator

Condition Key

Condition Value

Generated SNS Topic Policy

Output will appear here...

About This Tool

The SNS Topic Policy Builder helps you create access policies for Amazon SNS topics with proper principal, action, and condition configurations. SNS topic policies control which AWS accounts, services, or endpoints can publish or subscribe to your topics. This tool provides a form-based interface for building these policies, handling the JSON syntax and ARN formats so you can focus on defining the access rules you need.

When to Use This Tool

•Build a topic policy that allows S3 event notifications or CloudWatch Alarms to publish messages to your SNS topic.
•Create cross-account access policies to let other AWS accounts subscribe to your notification topics.
•Configure a policy that restricts publishing to specific IAM roles or AWS services for security compliance.
•Generate topic policies for fan-out architectures where multiple services need publish access to a single topic.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I need an SNS topic policy?: By default, only the topic owner can publish or subscribe. If you need other AWS accounts or services (like S3, CloudWatch, or EventBridge) to interact with your topic, you must add a resource-based policy granting them explicit permission.
Can I combine SNS topic policies with IAM policies?: Yes. SNS evaluates both the topic's resource-based policy and the caller's IAM policy. Access is granted if either policy allows it, unless there is an explicit deny. For cross-account access, both the topic policy and the caller's IAM policy must allow the action.

Related Learning Guides

AWS IAM Best Practices25 min read

Disclaimer: This tool runs entirely in your browser. No data is sent to our servers. Always verify outputs before using them in production. AWS, Azure, and GCP are trademarks of their respective owners.