Right now, It's not possible to define users providers in two (or more) files. It's caused by https://github.com/symfony/symfony/blob/06b493804632ca34eb089bbe2cd20f31bb9e32ed/src/Symfony/Bundle/SecurityBundle/DependencyInjection/MainConfiguration.php#L374 It was introduced by https://github.com/symfony/symfony/commit/0b8fef234724cb4cb3a4ab37466efe193a6c7708#diff-11df2572a68def120496f57a8eeff7afR184 (looks like there was no PR) Actually, I don't really understand the rational behind this constraint. I have commented this line in my project, and everything works fine. The PR is quite easy, I can submit it as soon as you're OK with that.