# AWS Security Token Service endpoints and quotas
AWS STS

To connect programmatically to an AWS service, you use an endpoint. AWS services offer the following endpoint types in some or all of the AWS Regions that the service supports: IPv4 endpoints, dual-stack endpoints, and FIPS endpoints. Some services provide global endpoints. For more information, see [AWS service endpoints](rande.md).

Service quotas, also referred to as limits, are the maximum number of service resources or operations for your AWS account. For more information, see [AWS service quotas](aws_service_limits.md).

The following are the service endpoints and service quotas for this service.

**Note**  
AWS recommends using Regional STS endpoints within your applications and avoid using the global (legacy) STS endpoint. Regional STS endpoints reduce latency, build in redundancy, and increase session token validity. For more information about configuring your applications to use the regional STS endpoint, see [AWS STS Regionalized endpoints](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdkref/latest/guide/feature-sts-regionalized-endpoints.html) in the *AWS SDKs and Tools Reference Guide*. For more information about the global (legacy) AWS STS endpoint, including how to monitor for use of this endpoint, see [How to use Regional AWS STS endpoints](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdkref/latest/guide/feature-sts-regionalized-endpoints.html) in the *AWS Security blog*.

## Service endpoints


Although the global (legacy) AWS STS endpoint `https://sts.amazonaws.com` is highly available, it’s hosted in a single AWS Region, US East (N. Virginia), and like other endpoints, it doesn’t provide automatic failover to endpoints in other Regions. Most Regional endpoints are active by default, but you must manually enable endpoints for some Regions, such as Asia Pacific (Hong Kong). You can deactivate STS endpoints for any Regions that are enabled by default if you do not intend to use those Regions.

[\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/sts.html)

## Service quotas


For information about AWS STS quotas, see [IAM and AWS STS quotas](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_iam-quotas.html) in the *IAM User Guide*.