diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index ce28220..d933e78 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -42,6 +42,9 @@ import { UserSchema } from '@seamless-auth/types';
 const user = UserSchema.parse(data);
 ```
 
+User role schemas accept plain roles such as `admin` and colon-separated scoped roles such as
+`admin:read` and `admin:write`. Whitespace, underscores, slashes, and backslashes are rejected.
+
 ### Infer types
 
 ```ts
diff --git a/src/schemas/user/schema.test.ts b/src/schemas/user/schema.test.ts
index be5538a..1938f03 100644
--- a/src/schemas/user/schema.test.ts
+++ b/src/schemas/user/schema.test.ts
@@ -57,6 +57,15 @@ describe('UserSchema', () => {
     ).toThrow();
   });
 
+  it('allows scoped role format', () => {
+    expect(() =>
+      UserSchema.parse({
+        ...baseUser,
+        roles: ['admin:read', 'admin:write'],
+      }),
+    ).not.toThrow();
+  });
+
   it('allows nullable lastLogin', () => {
     expect(() =>
       UserSchema.parse({
@@ -84,6 +93,16 @@ describe('CreateUserSchema', () => {
     ).not.toThrow();
   });
 
+  it('parses scoped roles', () => {
+    const parsed = CreateUserSchema.parse({
+      email: 'test@example.com',
+      phone: '1234567890',
+      roles: ['admin:read'],
+    });
+
+    expect(parsed.roles).toEqual(['admin:read']);
+  });
+
   it('fails if roles are empty', () => {
     expect(() =>
       CreateUserSchema.parse({
@@ -148,6 +167,14 @@ describe('UpdateUserSchema', () => {
     ).toThrow();
   });
 
+  it('parses scoped role updates', () => {
+    const parsed = UpdateUserSchema.parse({
+      roles: ['admin:write'],
+    });
+
+    expect(parsed.roles).toEqual(['admin:write']);
+  });
+
   it('fails on unknown fields due to strict()', () => {
     expect(() =>
       UpdateUserSchema.parse({
diff --git a/src/schemas/user/schema.ts b/src/schemas/user/schema.ts
index 4fa4b67..820049b 100644
--- a/src/schemas/user/schema.ts
+++ b/src/schemas/user/schema.ts
@@ -1,7 +1,10 @@
 import { z } from 'zod';
 import { IsoDate } from '../../shared.js';
 
-export const RoleSchema = z.string().regex(/^(?!.*[_/\\\s])[A-Za-z0-9-]{1,31}$/);
+export const RoleSchema = z
+  .string()
+  .trim()
+  .regex(/^(?!.*[_/\\\s])(?=.{1,80}$)[A-Za-z0-9-]+(?::[A-Za-z0-9-]+)*$/);
 
 export const UserSchema = z.object({
   id: z.uuid(),