AWS GovCloud (US) account management best practices

This article provides comprehensive best practices for managing AWS GovCloud (US) accounts, which operate in a separate partition designed for US government agencies handling sensitive data under compliance frameworks like FedRAMP High and DoD SRG.

• AWS GovCloud (US) accounts have one-to-one relationship with standard commercial accounts
• Three account creation methods: root user sign-in, support case, or AWS Organizations APIs
• GovCloud accounts use root access keys (not console login) for initial access
• Standard accounts should only handle billing and recovery, not workloads
• Enable CloudTrail, GuardDuty, Security Hub, AWS Config immediately upon creation
• Implement AWS Organizations separately in both commercial and GovCloud partitions
• Use Service Control Policies (SCPs) to enforce security baselines across accounts
• Store root credentials securely or delete after proper IAM controls established
• Use Non-Person Entity (NPE) mailboxes for account contact information
• Maintain current direct phone numbers for account verification and recovery

Organizations must establish strong security foundations from day one, including encryption policies, centralized identity management, and continuous compliance monitoring to meet government workload requirements.