⚠️ Select your experience

The steps depend on your interface version. Select a link to skip to the instructions for your version.

Customers who joined Drata on or after Feb 24, 2026 are automatically on the New Experience.

Instructions for the New Experience ⬇️

You can only delete a policy when it is in Draft status. Deleting a draft removes the unapproved version and reverts the policy to its previous version, if one exists.

Policies in Needs approval, Approved, or Published status can't be deleted. To remove an active policy, archive it instead.

Prerequisites

Only policies in Draft status can be deleted.
Policies in Needs approval, Approved, or Published status can't be deleted.

What happens when you delete a draft version

When you delete a draft policy version:

The current unapproved version is permanently deleted
The policy reverts to the previous version, if one exists
If no previous version exists, the policy is removed from the policies list

This action can't be undone.

Delete a draft policy version

Open Governance → Policies.
Locate the policy in Draft status.
Select the ellipsis (⋯) next to the policy and choose Delete draft.
Review the confirmation prompt.
Select Delete to confirm.

Delete draft option in the policy ellipsis menu

When a policy can be deleted

The ability to delete a policy depends on the policy type, status, and version.

Policy type	Status	Version	Result
Drata template policy	Draft	Version 0 (initial, unpublished)	Can't be deleted
Drata template policy	Draft	Version 1 or later	Draft can be deleted; reverts to the previous version
Custom policy	Draft	Version 0 (initial, unpublished)	Can be deleted; policy is removed entirely
Custom policy	Draft	Version 1 or later	Can be deleted; reverts to the previous version
Any policy	Needs approval	Any	Can't be deleted; cancel the approval cycle first
Any policy	Not Draft	Any	Can't be deleted; archive the policy instead
Synced external policy (Confluence or Notion)	N/A	Any	Can't be deleted in Drata; manage it in the external system and sync changes

Instructions for the Classic Experience ⬇️

Note: You can only delete policies that are in a Draft status. Policies and their versions that are not in Draft status cannot be deleted. Instead, you can archive policies that are in other statuses. Learn more about archiving policies.

Select the trash icon to delete the current unapproved version of the policy.
Confirm your decision.
- This will permanently delete the unapproved version of the policy. After deleting that version, the policy reverts to the previous version.

Note: If the policy is on version one (v1), there are no prior versions to revert to, and the policy row will be removed from the table.

Possible Cases for deleting a Policy

The ability to delete a policy depends on its type, status, and version number. Below are the scenarios:

Policy type	Status	Version	Result
Drata template policy	Draft	Version 0 (initial, unpublished)	Can't be deleted
Drata template policy	Draft	Version 1 or later	Draft can be deleted; reverts to the previous version
Custom policy	Draft	Version 0 (initial, unpublished)	Can be deleted; policy is removed entirely
Custom policy	Draft	Version 1 or later	Can be deleted; reverts to the previous version
Any policy	Needs approval	Any	Can't be deleted; cancel the approval cycle first
Any policy	Not Draft	Any	Can't be deleted; archive the policy instead
Synced external policy (Confluence or Notion)	N/A	Any	Can't be deleted in Drata; manage it in the external system and sync changes