Granting unlicensed (internal) access to Confluence Cloud

Summary

💡 Which guide do you need?

• If you've already enabled the site-level anonymous access control (available May 2026+ on paid plans with role-based access), spaces can no longer turn on anonymous access independently — see Control whether spaces can turn on anonymous access instead.

• If you specifically need to give Jira Service Management agents or customers view access to your Confluence knowledge base, see the step-by-step walkthrough in Give access to unlicensed users from Jira Service Management | Confluence Cloud | Atlassian Support.

About unlicensed access

Unlicensed access is different from anonymous access. Anonymous access can allow anyone on the internet to access content when it is enabled globally. Unlicensed access described in this article is for people who already have site access but do not have Confluence product access.

This article covers two internal-access cases:

• Unlicensed users from Jira Service Management: users with site access and no Confluence product access.

• Guests: users invited for external collaboration who already have access to one dedicated space.

For both cases, a space can be configured with anonymous permissions while global anonymous access remains disabled. This makes the configured space visible to users with site access without exposing the content to the public internet.

Solution

Pre-requisites to granting unlicensed access

• For unlicensed users from Jira Service Management

  • The Use Confluence permission must be enabled in the JSM section in Confluence Administration. This way, these accounts can access the instance and then the spaces.

  • The user must be granted site access, but have the product access disabled.

• For Guests

  • Upon inviting the user, guests will already have access to a single space dedicated to them. The guest account will respect the permissions assigned to guests in that space.

  • For spaces open for anonymous access, guest permissions will correspond to the ones assigned to anonymous

A combination of space permission changes and configuration is necessary for the accounts to allow guests and users without product access to view different spaces in Confluence.

Space permissions

As a space administrator, you must take the following steps for each space open for unlicensed users, starting with the permissions for each space.

• Go to the space in question and select the Space settings option from the sidebar.

• Select the Space permissions option in the sidebar (or General, under the Space permissions tab).

• Select Edit permissions.

• Under the Anonymous access session, check the permissions the unlicensed users should have (for example, View and Comment).

• Select Save all.

When anonymous access is granted, the following banner will be displayed by the system since the global permission for anonymous is disabled.

Anonymous users can't view this space because global anonymous 'Use Confluence' permission is currently turned off.

Go to global permissions to grant anonymous users permission to use Confluence.

The banner refers to anonymous users. It does not prevent the internal-access cases described in this article when the required site, JSM access, guest, and space-permission settings have been configured. Keep global anonymous access disabled so that the space is not visible to anyone on the internet.

Unlicensed user from JSM

As a reminder, before configuring access to additional spaces, confirm that:

• The user has site access but does not have Confluence product access.

• The JSM access setting has Use Confluence enabled (under Confluence Administration > Security > JSM access).

See the prerequisites section above for full details, or the Verify the configuration section below to troubleshoot.

Once the spaces have the permissions configured, all unlicensed users from Jira Service Management should be able to access it via the space directory (the Spaces part on the navigation bar) as long as the JSM access tab of the global permission is enabled:

1. As an administrator, tap the gear icon at the top right while in Confluence.

2. Select Security

3. Select JSM access, then Edit and select the Use Confluence option.

4. Tap Save.

Even though the users are not necessarily accessing a Jira Service Management project (or portal), as long as they have site access (and no product access to Confluence, as displayed in the screenshot from the pre-requisites part), the spaces should also be visible when navigating to Confluence.

Guests

Guests already have access to the single space assigned during the invite process. After anonymous permission is enabled for other spaces, those spaces are also visible to guest accounts. In those spaces, guest permissions correspond to the permissions assigned to anonymous users, so no additional guest-specific configuration is required.

Verify the configuration

After saving space permissions, confirm the setup is working:

1. Admin check: While still in the space as an admin, confirm the banner reads: "Anonymous users can't view this space because global anonymous 'Use Confluence' permission is currently turned off." This confirms anonymous access is enabled at the space level but correctly disabled globally (content is not exposed to the internet).

2. Unlicensed user check: Sign in (or ask a colleague to sign in) as a user who has site access but no Confluence product access — for example, a JSM-only user. Navigate to the space via the Spaces directory and confirm they can view content (and comment, if that permission was granted).

3. Guest check (if applicable): If you granted anonymous permissions for guest visibility, sign in as a guest account and confirm the expected spaces appear alongside their dedicated space.

⚠️ Tip: If the unlicensed user cannot see the space, verify that JSM access > Use Confluence is enabled under Confluence Settings > Security, and that the user has site access (visible in admin.atlassian.com) but Confluence product access is toggled off.