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Jira project template: pick one, copy one, and fill it with work
A Jira project template decides how a new project is set up: the board, the workflow, the work types and whether it is company-managed or team-managed. You pick one when you create the project, and Jira Cloud ships dozens (Scrum, Kanban, Bug tracking, IT service management, New employee onboarding and more). What a template does not give you is work. The project starts empty, so the checklist of issues your team creates in every new project, or every month inside one project, has to come from somewhere else. This guide covers the three separate jobs people mean by "project template": choosing a built-in one, copying an existing project's configuration, and filling a project with the same starting work items.
Atlassian now calls projects spaces in much of Jira Cloud's interface and documentation (checked September 2026). The two words mean the same thing here, and this article uses "project" because that is what most people still search for.
The three jobs behind "project template" #
| What you want | What does it in Jira Cloud | Who can do it |
|---|---|---|
| A sensible starting setup for a new team | A built-in template from the template library | Any user, for team-managed projects, unless an admin restricts it |
| A new project configured exactly like an existing one | Company-managed project with shared settings | Jira admins |
| The same issues in every new project | Cloning, CSV import, Automation, or an app | Depends on the method |
| The same issues on a calendar, every cycle | Automation's scheduled trigger, or a scheduling app | Project or Jira admins |
Most frustration with Jira project templates comes from expecting the first row to do the job of the third or fourth. Read on for each.
Built-in Jira project templates #
Atlassian's create-a-space page (checked September 2026) puts it plainly:
Jira apps come with many different space templates created to suit your team's needs and workflow. For example, you can create spaces optimized for scrum or kanban methodologies, or for tracking tasks in business teams like marketing, legal, and HR.
The same page says that "Jira admins can create spaces from any template, including company-managed and team-managed spaces", and that "Any user can create their own team-managed space unless a Jira admin changes this in global permissions."
Atlassian's template gallery lists these as its most popular, as of September 2026:
- Scrum for sprint-based software teams.
- Kanban for a continuous flow of work on one board.
- Bug tracking for capturing and resolving defects.
- Project management for a business project with a start and an end.
- DevOps for teams that build and run software.
- Task tracking and Personal task tracker for simple to-do work.
- IT service management for requests and incidents.
- New employee onboarding for the steps from offer to first day.
How to choose #
Pick by how work moves, since the template mostly decides the board and the workflow:
- Work arrives in sprints? Scrum. You get a backlog and sprint planning.
- Work arrives continuously and you limit work in progress? Kanban.
- Other people submit requests to you? A service management template.
- A business team with a list of tasks and due dates? Task tracking or project management.
Team-managed projects let the team change fields and workflow themselves. Company-managed projects are controlled by Jira admins and can share settings with other projects, which matters for the next section.
Copy an existing Jira project's configuration #
When you already have a project set up the way you like it, the closest thing Jira Cloud has to a custom project template is sharing settings with an existing project. Atlassian's steps, as of September 2026, are:
- Select a category or app from the template library, then Use template.
- Select Company-managed.
- Give the space a name.
- Select the Share settings with an existing space checkbox.
- Choose the space to share settings from, then Create.
Two things to know before relying on it:
- It is company-managed only, and it is an admin task.
- The settings are shared, not copied. The projects keep using the same configuration, so a later change to the workflow or fields affects every project sharing it. That is useful for keeping ten client projects consistent, and surprising if you expected an independent copy.
Sharing settings carries configuration. It does not bring across the other project's issues, epics or boards full of work.
A Jira project template with issues #
This is the variant most searches are really after: a new project that starts with the same epics, tasks and subtasks every time. A client kickoff, a new product launch, a team onboarding. Four ways to get there:
| Method | What it copies | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clone issues from a model project | Issues you pick, one at a time or in bulk | Free | A small starting set, done now and then |
| CSV import | Whatever columns your file has | Free | A larger set you maintain in a spreadsheet |
| Jira Automation rule | Issues the rule describes | Counts against your automation limits | A set created when something happens |
| A template app | Saved issue hierarchies | Licence above the free tier | People picking a structure at create time |
Clone from a model project #
Keep a model project with the starting issues in it, then clone them into the new project. Bulk cloning in Cloud has limits, which are covered in bulk clone issues in Jira. It is free, and it works until somebody edits the model issues in a real project by mistake.
Import a CSV #
Keep the starting issues in a spreadsheet and import them into each new project. This is the most transparent option: the whole template is one file anyone can read. The four ways of creating many issues at once are compared in Jira bulk create.
Automation or a template app #
A Jira Automation rule can create a fixed set of issues when triggered, and template apps save a whole hierarchy for people to pick from. Both are covered with their trade-offs in Jira task template and Jira epic template.
When the template has to come back every cycle #
Many "project templates" are really recurring work. The operations team that sets up the same monthly patching tasks. The security team with a quarterly access review. The finance team with a month-end close checklist. Creating a new project each cycle for this is heavy: new board, new permissions, new filters, and last month's history scattered across projects.
For recurring work, one project with scheduled issues usually beats a new project per cycle. The history stays in one place, one filter finds every past cycle, and nobody has to remember to start the next one.
Recurring Work Items for Jira does this inside the one project it is switched on for. A project admin enables it in project settings, then writes a rule per recurring item:
- Pick the work type and fill in the template: summary, description, assignee, labels, priority, and the project's own fields.
- Set the schedule and check the next five dates in the preview before saving.
- Add subtasks if every occurrence needs the same steps under it.
- Put date tokens in the summary so each issue names its own period, such as
Month-end close, {{now.monthName}} {{now.year}}. The token vocabulary is on the dynamic titles and dates page.
The project's working days and holidays are set once, and a rule can move an occurrence that lands on a non-working day. Each run is recorded, so you can see which issue was created, skipped or failed. Rules belong to one project, so another team's project is untouched.
For the wider comparison of ways to schedule issues, see Jira recurring tasks.
When a built-in template is enough #
- A new team with no existing process. Start from Scrum or Kanban and adjust later.
- One-off projects. If the starting issues differ every time, a template of issues saves little.
- Consistency across many projects is the whole goal. Shared settings on company-managed projects do that without any app.
Summary #
- A Jira project template sets up how a project works, not what is in it.
- To reuse your own setup, create a company-managed project that shares settings with an existing one, and remember the settings stay linked.
- To start projects with the same issues, clone, import a CSV, or use Automation or a template app.
- If the same issues come back every week, month or quarter, schedule them in one project instead of cloning a new project each cycle.