Assuming that you're not hardcoding anything region-specific, a copy is likely going to be the preferred method since this way you know that the AMIs are the sa

Assuming that you're not hardcoding anything region-specific, a copy is likely going to be the preferred method since this way you know that the AMIs are the same (ie there's no way that a dependency updated). However there are two complicating factors that may persuade you the other way. Check the cost of cross-region data transfer vs the cost of building your AMI. If your AMI is particularly large, it may make more financial sense to just rebuild the AMI. The other complicating factor is encryption. You _can_ copy an encrypted AMI per https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/CopyingAMIs.html#ami-copy-encryption https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/CopyingA..., although perms can be a bit finicky. If you're encrypting something with a region-specific Vault or a HSM, then you'll likely need to rebuild the AMI