Using AWS-generated tags - AWS Billing
AWS Marketplace vendor-provided tagsRestrictions on AWS-generated tags cost allocation tags

Using AWS-generated tags

The AWS-generated tag createdBy is a tag that AWS defines and applies to supported AWS resources for cost allocation purposes. To use the AWS-generated tag, a management account owner must activate it in the Billing and Cost Management console. When a management account owner activates the tag, the tag is also activated for all member accounts. After the tag is activated, AWS starts applying the tag to resources that are created after the AWS-generated tag is activated. The AWS-generated tag is available only in the Billing and Cost Management console and reports, and doesn't appear anywhere else in the AWS console, including the AWS Tag Editor. The createdBy tag does not count towards your tags per resource quota.

The aws:createdBy tags are populated only in the following AWS Regions:

  • ap-northeast-1

  • ap-northeast-2

  • ap-south-1

  • ap-southeast-1

  • ap-southeast-2

  • cn-north-1

  • eu-central-1

  • eu-west-1

  • sa-east-1

  • us-east-1

  • us-east-2

  • us-gov-west-1

  • us-west-1

  • us-west-2

Resources created outside of these AWS Regions will not have this tag auto-populated.

The createdBy tag uses the following key-value definition:

key = aws:createdBy
value = account-type:account-ID or access-key:user-name or role session name

Not all values include all of the value parameters. For example, the value for a AWS-generated tag for a root account doesn't always have a user name.

Valid values for the account-type are Root, IAMUser, AssumedRole, and FederatedUser.

If the tag has an account ID, the account-id tracks the account number of the root account or federated user who created the resource. If the tag has an access key, then the access-key tracks the IAM access key used and, if applicable, the session role name.

The user-name is the user name, if one is available.

Here are some examples of tag values:

Root:1234567890
Root: 111122223333 :exampleUser
IAMUser: AIDACKCEVSQ6C2EXAMPLE :exampleUser
AssumedRole: AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE :exampleRole
FederatedUser:1234567890:exampleUser

For more information about IAM users, roles, and federation, see the IAM User Guide.

AWS generated cost allocation tags are applied on a best-effort basis. Issues with services that AWS-generated tag depends on, such as CloudTrail, can cause a gap in tagging.

The createdBy tag is applied only to the following services and resources after the following events.

AWS Product API or Console Event Resource Type
AWS CloudFormation (AWS CloudFormation)

CreateStack

Stack
AWS Data Pipeline (AWS Data Pipeline)

CreatePipeline

Pipeline
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)

CreateCustomerGateway

Customer gateway

CreateDhcpOptions

DHCP options

CreateImage

Image

CreateInternetGateway

Internet gateway

CreateNetworkAcl

Network ACL

CreateNetworkInterface

Network interface

CreateRouteTable

Route table

CreateSecurityGroup

Security group

CreateSnapshot

Snapshot

CreateSubnet

Subnet

CreateVolume

Volume

CreateVpc

VPC

CreateVpcPeeringConnection

VPC peering connection

CreateVpnConnection

VPN connection

CreateVpnGateway

VPN gateway

PurchaseReservedInstancesOffering

Reserved-instance

RequestSpotInstances

Spot-instance-request

RunInstances

Instance
Amazon ElastiCache (ElastiCache)

CreateSnapshot

Snapshot

CreateCacheCluster

Cluster
AWS Elastic Beanstalk (Elastic Beanstalk)

CreateEnvironment

Environment

CreateApplication

Application
Elastic Load Balancing (Elastic Load Balancing)

CreateLoadBalancer

Loadbalancer
Amazon S3 Glacier (S3 Glacier)

CreateVault

Vault
Amazon Kinesis (Kinesis)

CreateStream

Stream
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS)

CreateDBInstanceReadReplica

Database

CreateDBParameterGroup

ParameterGroup

CreateDBSnapshot

Snapshot

CreateDBSubnetGroup

SubnetGroup

CreateEventSubscription

EventSubscription

CreateOptionGroup

OptionGroup

PurchaseReservedDBInstancesOffering

ReservedDBInstance

CreateDBInstance

Database
Amazon Redshift (Amazon Redshift)

CreateClusterParameterGroup

ParameterGroup

CreateClusterSnapshot

Snapshot

CreateClusterSubnetGroup

SubnetGroup

CreateCluster

Cluster
Amazon Route 53 (Route 53)

CreateHealthCheck

HealthCheck

CreatedHostedZone

HostedZone
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)

CreateBucket

Bucket
AWS Storage Gateway (Storage Gateway)

ActivateGateway

Gateway
Note

The CreateDBSnapshot tag isn't applied to the snapshot backup storage.

AWS Marketplace vendor-provided tags

Certain AWS Marketplace vendors can create tags and associate them with your software usage. These tags will have the prefix aws:marketplace:isv:. To use the tags, a management account owner must activate the tag in the Billing and Cost Management console. When a management account owner activates the tag, the tag is also activated for all member accounts. Similar to aws:createdBy tags, these tags appear only in the Billing and Cost Management console and they don't count towards your tags per resource quota. You can find the tag keys that apply to the product on the AWS Marketplace product pages.

Restrictions on AWS-generated tags cost allocation tags

The following restrictions apply to the AWS-generated tags:

  • Only a management account can activate AWS-generated tags.

  • You can't update, edit, or delete AWS-generated tags.

  • The maximum active tag keys for Billing and Cost Management reports is 500.

  • AWS-generated tags are created using CloudTrail logs. CloudTrail logs over a certain size cause AWS-generated tag creation to fail.

  • The reserved prefix is aws:.

    AWS-generated tag names and values are automatically assigned the aws: prefix, which you can't assign. AWS-generated tag names don't count towards the user-defined resource tag quota of 50. User-defined tag names have the prefix user: in the cost allocation report.

  • Null tag values will not appear in Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets. If there is only one tag value that is also null, the tag key will also not appear in Cost Explorer or AWS Budgets.

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