AWS says AMI owners can make selected tags visible to accounts that receive an Amazon Machine Image.
The distinction is between owner-controlled shared tags and recipients’ own tags—and between the announced feature and any operational savings a team might achieve.
Data Center News & Trends
What did AWS announce?
An Amazon EC2 Amazon Machine Image (AMI) owner can make selected tags visible to accounts with which the AMI is shared. AWS says a shared tag accompanies an AMI shared with an individual account, across an organization, or publicly.
The AWS notice’s feed was published on October 5, 2026. A separate feature launch date has not been established.
AWS — Amazon EC2 introduces shared tags for Amazon Machine Images
Who controls a shared tag?
According to AWS, the owner marks a tag for sharing by adding `ec2:SharedTag/` to its key. Accounts receiving the AMI can see the shared tag, but it is read-only for them: only the owner can create, change, or delete it.
Shared AMI tag
- Who manages it?
- The owner creates, changes, and deletes it; recipients can read it
- How do shared tags affect tag limits?
- It counts only against the owner’s 50-tags-per-resource quota
Recipient’s private tag
- Who manages it?
- A recipient can add its own tag
- How do shared tags affect tag limits?
- Shared tags do not count against the recipient’s tag limit
That distinction matters if a recipient needs to manage its own metadata. An owner-controlled shared tag conveys information with the AMI; it is not an editable tag handed over to each receiving account.
What has been established about availability and operational benefit?
AWS says the feature is available in all AWS Regions at no additional cost. That statement concerns AMI tag sharing, not the total cost of using EC2.
AWS also says shared tags eliminate the need to build and maintain custom workflows for replicating tags into accounts after an AMI is shared. Its announcement does not report measured time savings or results from a particular organization. Whether that benefit applies to a team depends on what its existing workflow needs to do.
What should a team check before using shared tags?
A team can first decide which tag keys should be visible to AMI recipients, including when an AMI is made public. It can then check visibility in its own AMI-sharing workflow and keep owner-managed shared tags distinct from tags recipients add for themselves.
The practical takeaway is a boundary, not a promised efficiency gain: use shared tags for information the owner intends to convey with the AMI, and assess any reduction in tag-management work against the team’s actual procedures.
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