How to Import an Google IAM Service Account into Terraform

Import Google IAM Service Account with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Cloud IAM resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google IAM Service Account to managed Terraform.

terraback scan all gcp --project my-gcp-project

terraback gcp import --method bulk

The Terraform import block

Terraback emits a Terraform 1.5+ import block like the one below. Because the block lives in your configuration, the import is reviewable in a pull request and repeatable across environments.

import {
  to = google_service_account.ci
  id = "projects/my-project/serviceAccounts/ci-deployer@my-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com"
}

Example google_service_account configuration

Here is a realistic Google IAM Service Account block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "google_service_account" "ci" {
  account_id   = "ci-deployer"
  display_name = "CI Deployer"
  description  = "Used by the CI pipeline"
}

Gotchas when importing a Google IAM Service Account

• The import ID uses the full service account email, but HCL sets account_id, which is just the part before the @.
• account_id is immutable; the email is derived as <account_id>@<project>.iam.gserviceaccount.com.
• Roles granted to the account are separate google_project_iam_member bindings, and keys are separate google_service_account_key resources.
• A deleted service account name is reserved for a period and cannot be reused immediately, so avoid destroy/recreate during testing.

Doing it manually with terraform import

The native approach is to write the google_service_account block by hand, then run terraform import google_service_account.example <import-id> for every resource, one at a time. That works for a handful of resources, but it does not scale: you author all the HCL yourself and repeat the command for each item. Terraback generates the HCL and the import blocks for your whole account in one pass.

Import other Google Cloud resources