Disclosed are, inter alia, methods, apparatus, data structures, computer-readable media, and mechanisms, for identifying admission control policies and enforcement of these admission control policies on packets destined for a route processor. A typical routing device includes: a route processor, a forwarding lookup mechanism for identifying packets destined for the route processor; a lookup mechanism for identifying admission control parameters for packets destined for the route processor; and an admission control enforcement mechanism for enforcing the identified admission control policy parameters for the packets.