# Access permissions on GitHub

With roles, you can control who has access to your accounts and resources and the level of access each person has.

## About access permissions on GitHub

To perform any actions on GitHub, such as creating a pull request in a repository or changing an organization's billing settings, a person must have sufficient access to the relevant account or resource. This access is controlled by permissions. A permission is the ability to perform a specific action. For example, the ability to delete an issue is a permission. A role is a set of permissions you can assign to individuals or teams.

Roles work differently for different types of accounts. For more information about accounts, see [Types of GitHub accounts](/en/enterprise-server@3.22/get-started/learning-about-github/types-of-github-accounts).

## Personal accounts

A repository owned by a personal account has two permission levels: the *repository owner* and *collaborators*. For more information, see [Permission levels for a personal account repository](/en/enterprise-server@3.22/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/repository-access-and-collaboration/permission-levels-for-a-personal-account-repository).

## Organization accounts

Organization members can have *owner* or *member* roles. Owners have complete administrative access to your organization. Member is the default role for everyone else. You can manage access permissions for multiple members at a time with teams. For more information, see:

* [Roles in an organization](/en/enterprise-server@3.22/organizations/managing-peoples-access-to-your-organization-with-roles/roles-in-an-organization)
* [Repository roles for an organization](/en/enterprise-server@3.22/organizations/managing-user-access-to-your-organizations-repositories/managing-repository-roles/repository-roles-for-an-organization)
* [About organization teams](/en/enterprise-server@3.22/organizations/organizing-members-into-teams/about-teams)

## Enterprise accounts

Enterprise accounts have a range of predefined roles that define users' access to the enterprise settings. You can also create custom enterprise roles to define your own sets of fine-grained permissions.

For more information, see [Abilities of roles in an enterprise](/en/enterprise-server@3.22/admin/managing-accounts-and-repositories/managing-roles-in-your-enterprise/abilities-of-roles).

## Further reading

* [Types of GitHub accounts](/en/enterprise-server@3.22/get-started/learning-about-github/types-of-github-accounts)