Update an existing IAM policy on Vultr. Modify the policy document, name, or description to adjust permission rules for associated users, groups, and roles.
Updating a policy allows you to change its name, description, or permission rules defined in the policy document. This is useful when you need to expand or restrict the actions and resources covered by the policy.
This guide explains how to update a policy using the Vultr Console and the Vultr API.
Send a GET request to the List Policies endpoint to retrieve all policies in your organization.
$ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/policies" \
-X GET \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"
Note the id of the policy you want to update.
Send a GET request to the Read Policy endpoint to retrieve the current policy details. Replace {policy-id} with the id you retrieved in the previous step.
$ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/policies/{policy-id}" \
-X GET \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"
Send a PUT request to the Update Policy endpoint to update the policy. Replace the values with your updated policy details.
$ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/policies/{policy-id}" \
-X PUT \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"name": "NEW-POLICY-NAME",
"description": "NEW-POLICY-DESCRIPTION",
"policy_document": {
"Version": "2026-03-20",
"Statement": [
{
"Action": [
"compute.instance.List",
"compute.instance.Read",
"compute.instance.Update"
],
"Effect": "Allow",
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}
}'
A successful update returns an HTTP 202 Accepted response with no response body.
Send a GET request to the Read Policy endpoint to retrieve the updated details.
$ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/policies/{policy-id}" \
-X GET \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"
Verify that the policy details reflect the new values.