Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for directional optimization of policy statements for a Web service. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for directional optimization of policy statements in a policy document can be provided. The method can include loading a policy document referenced for a Web service, extracting a policy from the policy document, and determining whether the extracted policy is bi-directional or direction agnostic. A single run time presentation for the extracted policy can be created when the extracted policy is direction agnostic. Otherwise, separate run time presentations can be created for each direction of the extracted policy when the extracted policy is bi-directional.