LimitExceeded
AWS LimitExceeded means the IAM request exceeds current account limits for identity objects or attachment dimensions (HTTP 409).
Last reviewed: February 28, 2026|Editorial standard: source-backed technical guidance
What Does Limit Exceeded Mean?
IAM blocked the operation at quota boundaries, so entity creation or attachment changes cannot continue until object counts or attachment usage are reduced or increased.
Common Causes
- -Account reached IAM object limits (users, roles, groups, policies, or attachments).
- -Automation continuously creates IAM artifacts without cleanup lifecycle.
- -Role/policy attachment count per principal exceeded allowed boundaries.
- -Growth in tenants/environments outpaced IAM quota planning.
How to Fix Limit Exceeded
- 1Identify exact IAM limit dimension from error context and account metrics.
- 2Delete or consolidate unused IAM entities, policies, and attachments.
- 3Request quota increase for adjustable IAM limits when supported.
- 4Re-run operation only after limit headroom is restored.
Step-by-Step Diagnosis for Limit Exceeded
- 1Capture request ID and failing IAM operation to map to specific limit dimension.
- 2Inventory current IAM object counts and attachment fan-out.
- 3Correlate limit breaches with recent provisioning waves or tenant onboarding.
- 4Audit IAM lifecycle jobs for missing cleanup/deprovisioning steps.
IAM Quota Dimension Breakdown
- -Identify exact exceeded IAM dimension (example: roles per account, policies per role, or managed policy attachments per principal).
- -Map growth trend to provisioning events (example: tenant onboarding creates per-tenant role until account role quota is exhausted).
Cleanup and Consolidation Path
- -Audit stale IAM entities and unattached policies for removal (example: hundreds of orphaned policies left by old environments).
- -Consolidate policy attachments and role model where feasible (example: merge fragmented per-feature policies into scoped domain policies).
How to Verify the Fix
- -Confirm previously blocked IAM create/attach operation succeeds after remediation.
- -Validate IAM object counts remain below configured alert thresholds.
- -Ensure provisioning workflows complete without recurring limit breaches.
How to Prevent Recurrence
- -Enforce IAM object lifecycle cleanup and retention policies.
- -Set quota headroom alerts for IAM object and attachment growth.
- -Run capacity planning for identity growth before major onboarding events.
Pro Tip
- -maintain an IAM quota budget per platform team and require quota-impact estimation in change reviews before large identity rollouts.
Decision Support
Compare Guide
429 Too Many Requests vs 503 Service Unavailable
Use 429 for caller-specific throttling and 503 for service-wide outages, so retry behavior, escalation paths, and incident ownership stay correct.
Compare Guide
AWS ThrottlingException vs GCP RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED
Compare AWS ThrottlingException and GCP RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED to separate rate limiting from quota/resource exhaustion and choose the remediation path.
Playbook
Rate Limit Recovery Playbook (429 / ThrottlingException / RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED)
Use this playbook to separate transient throttling from hard quota exhaustion and apply retry, traffic-shaping, and quota-capacity fixes safely.
Official References
Provider Context
This guidance is specific to AWS services. Always validate implementation details against official provider documentation before deploying to production.