Amazon EC2 introduces shared tags for Amazon Machine Images

Amazon EC2 has introduced a new feature enabling AMI owners to share selected tags with any AWS account granted access to the image. Previously, sharing an AMI required manually replicating tags across accounts, which created operational overhead. The new capability automates this process by attaching shared tags directly to the AMI, visible to all recipient accounts. This eliminates the need for custom workflows to maintain tag consistency after sharing.

To use the feature, AMI owners must prefix tag keys with 'ec2:SharedTag/'. Once applied, these tags appear automatically in every account that receives the AMI, whether shared individually, across an organization, or made public. The tags are read-only for recipients, ensuring only the owner can modify or delete them. This maintains clear ownership while reducing administrative tasks associated with tag management.

Shared tags count against the AMI owner’s 50-tag-per-resource quota, not the recipient accounts’ limits. Recipients can still add their own private tags without affecting their tagging budgets. This design prevents quota conflicts and ensures recipient accounts retain full control over their internal tagging strategies. The feature simplifies cross-account collaboration without imposing additional constraints.

The feature is available in all AWS Regions at no extra cost. AMI owners can implement shared tags immediately by following the documented prefix convention. For further guidance, AWS provides documentation and a blog post detailing the implementation and use cases. No additional fees or configurations are required to enable this capability.