The S3 backend does not yet recognise New Zealand region ap-southeast-6

[terencewhitenz]

Terraform Version

Terraform v1.14.0-beta2
on linux_amd64
also present in latest non-beta release
Terraform v1.13.3
on linux_amd64

Terraform Configuration Files

terraform {
  required_version = "~> 1.13"
  required_providers {
    aws = {
      source  = "hashicorp/aws"
      version = "~> 6.0"
    }
  }
  backend "s3" {
    bucket = "s3bucketnamethatexists"
    key = "state"
    region = "ap-southeast-6"
    use_lockfile = true
  }
}

Debug Output

2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [INFO]  Terraform version: 1.14.0 beta2
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [DEBUG] using github.com/hashicorp/go-tfe v1.91.0
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [DEBUG] using github.com/hashicorp/hcl/v2 v2.24.0
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [DEBUG] using github.com/hashicorp/terraform-svchost v0.1.1
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [DEBUG] using github.com/zclconf/go-cty v1.16.3
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [INFO]  Go runtime version: go1.25.1
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [INFO]  CLI args: []string{"terraform", "init", "--backend-config=backend.tf.infra-platform", "--reconfigure"}
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [TRACE] Stdout is a terminal of width 158
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [TRACE] Stderr is a terminal of width 158
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [TRACE] Stdin is a terminal
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [DEBUG] Attempting to open CLI config file: /home/ec2-user/.terraformrc
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [DEBUG] File doesn't exist, but doesn't need to. Ignoring.
2025-10-15T13:13:29.081+1300 [DEBUG] ignoring non-existing provider search directory terraform.d/plugins
2025-10-15T13:13:29.082+1300 [DEBUG] ignoring non-existing provider search directory /home/ec2-user/.terraform.d/plugins
2025-10-15T13:13:29.082+1300 [DEBUG] ignoring non-existing provider search directory /home/ec2-user/.local/share/terraform/plugins
2025-10-15T13:13:29.082+1300 [DEBUG] ignoring non-existing provider search directory /usr/local/share/terraform/plugins
2025-10-15T13:13:29.082+1300 [DEBUG] ignoring non-existing provider search directory /usr/share/terraform/plugins
2025-10-15T13:13:29.082+1300 [INFO]  CLI command args: []string{"init", "--backend-config=backend.tf.infra-platform", "--reconfigure"}
Initializing the backend...
2025-10-15T13:13:29.090+1300 [TRACE] Meta.Backend: merging -backend-config=... CLI overrides into backend configuration
2025-10-15T13:13:29.090+1300 [TRACE] Meta.Backend: built configuration for "s3" backend with hash value 1410938009
2025-10-15T13:13:29.090+1300 [TRACE] Meta.Backend: backend has not previously been initialized in this working directory
2025-10-15T13:13:29.090+1300 [TRACE] Meta.Backend: moving from default local state only to "s3" backend
2025-10-15T13:13:29.091+1300 [DEBUG] checking for provisioner in "."
2025-10-15T13:13:29.091+1300 [DEBUG] checking for provisioner in "/home/ec2-user"
2025-10-15T13:13:29.091+1300 [TRACE] backend/local: state manager for workspace "default" will:
 - read initial snapshot from terraform.tfstate
 - write new snapshots to terraform.tfstate
 - create any backup at terraform.tfstate.backup
2025-10-15T13:13:29.091+1300 [TRACE] statemgr.Filesystem: reading initial snapshot from terraform.tfstate
2025-10-15T13:13:29.091+1300 [TRACE] statemgr.Filesystem: snapshot file has nil snapshot, but that's okay
2025-10-15T13:13:29.091+1300 [TRACE] statemgr.Filesystem: read nil snapshot
2025-10-15T13:13:29.091+1300 [TRACE] Meta.Backend: ignoring local "default" workspace because its state is empty
╷
│ Error: Invalid region value
│
│   on terraform.tf line 11, in terraform:
│   11:   backend "s3" {
│
│ Invalid AWS Region: ap-southeast-6
╵

Expected Behavior

Terraform should have initialised as the bucket exists in the region and terraform is run with admin credentials. This works with a bucket in another region (ap-southeast-2).

$ aws s3api get-bucket-location --bucket s3bucketnamethatexists
{
    "LocationConstraint": "ap-southeast-6"
}

Actual Behavior

Terraform throws an error that it does not recognise the region

│ Error: Invalid region value
│
│   on terraform.tf line 11, in terraform:
│   11:   backend "s3" {
│
│ Invalid AWS Region: ap-southeast-6
╵

Steps to Reproduce

1. terraform init

Additional Context

The New Zealand region opened a month and a half ago.

References

hashicorp/terraform-provider-aws#44637 is the same issue raised against the AWS Provider. I think this is an S3 backend issue rather than an AWS Provider issue.

Generative AI / LLM assisted development?

No response

[crw]

Thanks for this report, I will raise it with the appropriate team (AWS Provider team at HashiCorp).

[ewbankkit]

ap-southeast-6 support added in hashicorp/aws-sdk-go-base#1347, hashicorp/aws-sdk-go-base v2.0.0-beta.66 and v2/awsv1shim/v2.0.0-beta.67 which was added to Terraform v1.14.0 via #37743 (#37721 in main, which is 1.15).
@terencewhitenz Can you update to Terraform v1.14.0-rc1 or wait until v1.14.0?

[crw]

As the task is completed, I am going to close this issue. Thanks!