Use CreatePolicyVersion with an Amazon SDK or command line tool

To create a new version of a managed policy

This example creates a new v2 version of the IAM policy whose ARN is arn:aws:iam::123456789012:policy/MyPolicy and makes it the default version.

aws iam create-policy-version \
    --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::123456789012:policy/MyPolicy \
    --policy-document file://NewPolicyVersion.json \
    --set-as-default

Output:

{
    "PolicyVersion": {
        "CreateDate": "2015-06-16T18:56:03.721Z",
        "VersionId": "v2",
        "IsDefaultVersion": true
    }
}

For more information, see Versioning IAM policies in the Amazon IAM User Guide.

Example 1: This example creates a new "v2" version of the IAM policy whose ARN is arn:aws:iam::123456789012:policy/MyPolicy and makes it the default version. The NewPolicyVersion.json file provides the policy content. Note that you must use the -Raw switch parameter to successfully process the JSON policy file.

New-IAMPolicyVersion -PolicyArn arn:aws:iam::123456789012:policy/MyPolicy -PolicyDocument (Get-content -Raw NewPolicyVersion.json) -SetAsDefault $true

Output:

CreateDate                           Document                  IsDefaultVersion             VersionId
----------                           --------                  ----------------             ---------
4/15/2015 10:54:54 AM                                          True                         v2

def create_policy_version(policy_arn, actions, resource_arn, set_as_default):
    """
    Creates a policy version. Policies can have up to five versions. The default
    version is the one that is used for all resources that reference the policy.

    :param policy_arn: The ARN of the policy.
    :param actions: The actions to allow in the policy version.
    :param resource_arn: The ARN of the resource this policy version applies to.
    :param set_as_default: When True, this policy version is set as the default
                           version for the policy. Otherwise, the default
                           is not changed.
    :return: The newly created policy version.
    """
    policy_doc = {
        "Version": "2012-10-17",
        "Statement": [{"Effect": "Allow", "Action": actions, "Resource": resource_arn}],
    }
    try:
        policy = iam.Policy(policy_arn)
        policy_version = policy.create_version(
            PolicyDocument=json.dumps(policy_doc), SetAsDefault=set_as_default
        )
        logger.info(
            "Created policy version %s for policy %s.",
            policy_version.version_id,
            policy_version.arn,
        )
    except ClientError:
        logger.exception("Couldn't create a policy version for %s.", policy_arn)
        raise
    else:
        return policy_version