An access-control policy sets the organization’s rules, responsibilities, and procedures for granting and managing access. Identity and access management (IAM) provides capabilities for administering identities and permissions; zero-trust architecture shapes how access to resources is evaluated and enforced. They work together, but they are not interchangeable.
Access control policy sample
Use this sample as a framework, then tailor it to your organization, systems, and legal or contractual obligations. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 control AC-1 says an access-control policy should address purpose, scope, roles and responsibilities, management commitment, coordination among organizational entities, and compliance. It also calls for procedures that support implementation, a designated official responsible for developing and distributing the policy, and an organization-defined review and update schedule or set of triggering events. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5
- Purpose and objectives: Explain what the policy governs and the organizational or security need it addresses.
- Scope: Identify the workforce, systems, information, applications, cloud services, and other resources covered. Specify exclusions if needed.
- Owner and responsibilities: Assign responsibility for approval, administration, access requests, reviews, exceptions, and enforcement. Use role names that match your organization.
- Access principles: State how authorization rules are established, approved, and applied. Choose principles and role models that fit your environment rather than assuming one model works everywhere.
- Procedures and related standards: Refer to the workflows and technical standards that implement the policy, such as request, approval, provisioning, review, change, and removal processes where applicable.
- Exceptions and escalation: Define who may approve an exception, what must be recorded, and when an exception expires or is reconsidered. This is a useful sample-design practice; it is not a verbatim AC-1 requirement.
- Review and maintenance: Set a review schedule and identify events that prompt an earlier review, such as an audit finding, incident, or relevant change in law or standards.
Keep the policy distinct from its operating procedures and technical settings. NIST’s annotated AC-1 example cautions: “Simply restating controls does not constitute an organizational policy or procedure.” A policy should establish direction and accountability; related procedures explain how people carry it out.
How policy, IAM, and zero trust differ
| Dimension | Access-control policy | IAM | Zero-trust architecture |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A governance statement supported by procedures | Capabilities for managing identities, credentials, accounts, and access rights | An architecture and set of principles for protecting resources |
| Main question | What rules and responsibilities govern access? | How are identities and entitlements administered and used? | How should access to a resource be evaluated and enforced in context? |
| Typical scope | An organization, business process, or system | Users, identities, credentials, accounts, and access rights | Users, devices, services, applications, data, and network paths |
| Relationship | Sets direction and accountability | Can support or implement policy decisions | Can use IAM information and other signals to make and enforce access decisions |
In practice, the policy defines the organization’s expectations; IAM helps administer identities and entitlements; and a zero-trust design applies access decisions to particular resources. A policy is not an IAM product or a zero-trust blueprint, and adopting either capability does not replace the need for documented governance.
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What zero trust changes about access decisions
NIST describes zero trust as a shift away from static network perimeters toward protection focused on users, assets, and resources. A user’s location or ownership of a device alone does not establish implicit trust. Authentication and authorization of the subject and device occur before a session to an enterprise resource is established. NIST SP 800-207
NIST’s implementation material discusses identity and endpoint information, analytics, and other inputs as factors that can inform access decisions; those decisions may be evaluated continually during a session. The publication describes multiple implementation approaches rather than prescribing one universal architecture. NIST NCCoE: Implementing a Zero Trust Architecture
What to specify for cloud access
For cloud systems, name the service models and components covered—such as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), or software as a service (SaaS)—and clarify which responsibilities belong to your organization or provider. NIST SP 800-210 explains that cloud service models can be hierarchical: guidance for functional components at a lower layer can also apply at higher layers, while each model retains its own access-control focus. NIST SP 800-210
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Use implementation examples without treating them as policy templates
NIST finalized SP 1800-35 on June 10, 2025. The publication describes work with 24 collaborators and 19 example zero-trust implementations built using commercially available technologies. It includes implementation detail, lessons, and mappings to standards and guidelines, making it useful for examining possible implementation patterns—not as a ready-made organizational policy or evidence that one vendor approach suits every organization. NIST SP 1800-35 project
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The project documentation covers identity governance, software-defined perimeter, microsegmentation, and secure access service edge (SASE) approaches. The examples were developed incrementally and assume existing cybersecurity capabilities; their scope is conventional enterprise IT, with operational technology (OT) and Internet of Things (IoT) environments out of scope. NIST presents zero trust as concepts and principles, with continuous improvement of access-control processes and policies as an objective. NIST NCCoE project documentation
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