Connect Liquibase with Google BigQuery

Last updated: July 14, 2025

Google BigQuery is a fully managed analytics data warehouse.

The Liquibase Pro Google BigQuery extension enables efficient version control and database change management for BigQuery schema and application data. This extension gives Google BigQuery users a smooth, streamlined approach to database change management and deployment, fitting effortlessly into Agile development and CI/CD automation practices.

Read more about Database DevOps with Liquibase and BigQuery.

Verified database versions 2.13.6+

Warning: Liquibase versions 4.24.0, 4.25.0, and 4.25.1 transformed table names in BigQuery to lowercase which caused Liquibase to not be able to read its own DATABASECHANGELOG table, so it would create a new one and redeploy all previously deployed changesets. This issue is fixed in Liquibase 4.26.0 and later releases.

Before you begin

  • Install Liquibase.

  • Ensure you have Java installed. Liquibase requires Java to run. If you used the Liquibase Installer, Java is included automatically. Otherwise, you must install Java manually.

  • If you use Liquibase Pro, or a Liquibase Pro extension, confirm that you have a valid license key.

Procedure

1

Install drivers

The latest version of Liquibase has a pre-installed driver for this database in the $LIQUIBASE_HOME/internal/lib directory, so you don't need to install it yourself.

If you prefer, you can use environment variables to point to the directory where Liquibase is installed on your machine. You can set environment variables using your operating system's shell. The location of $LIQUIBASE_HOME will depend on where Liquibase was installed on your machine.

Note for Maven users: If you're running Liquibase using the Maven plugin using mvn liquibase:update, installing the extension with Maven ensures the right files are available and everything works together automatically. You can manage these extensions by adding them as dependencies in your project’s pom.xml file. Configuring Maven this way ensures that the necessary JAR files are retrieved from Maven Central during the build phase.

2

Configure your connection.

1. Ensure your BigQuery database is configured. See BigQuery Quickstarts for more information.

2. Specify the database URL in the liquibase.properties file (defaults file), along with other properties you want to set a default value for. Liquibase does not parse the URL. You can either specify the full database connection string or specify the URL using your database's standard connection format:

Before you run the example, be sure to:

  • Update your_host with your BigQuery host.

  • Update your_port with your BigQuery port number.

  • Update your_project_id with your BigQuery project ID. This is the project the driver queries by default and the one that is billed for queries run using the Data Source Name. See BigQuery: Projects for more information.

  • Update your_dataset_id with your default BigQuery dataset ID. This is the dataset the driver queries by default. Liquibase requires this parameter to know where to create its tracking tables. It also allows you to use unqualified table names, which the driver treats as part of the default dataset. See BigQuery: Introduction to datasets.

  • Update your_oauth_type with your OAuth type (0, 1, 2, or 3). This determines how the driver obtains or provides credentials for OAuth 2.0 authentication.

  • Update any additional properties (your_property1=your_value1, etc.) as needed for your configuration.

url: jdbc:bigquery://your_host:your_port;ProjectId=your_project_id;DefaultDataset=your_dataset_id;OAuthType=your_oauth_type;your_property1=your_value1;your_property2=your_value2;...

Note: For detailed information on JDBC connections for BigQuery, including OAuthType information, see here: Simba Google BigQuery JDBC Connector Install and Configuration Guide_1.5.0.1001.pdf.

Google Services. Requires the options OAuthServiceAcctEmail (service principal identifier) and OAuthPvtKeyPath (private key) in your Liquibase url property. For example:

url: jdbc:bigquery://https://googleapis.com/bigquery/v2:443; ProjectId=myProject; DefaultDataset=myDataset; OAuthType=0; OAuthServiceAcctEmail=lbtest@bq123.iam.gserviceaccount.com; OAuthPvtKeyPath=C:\path\serviceKey.p12;

To obtain values for OAuthServiceAcctEmail and OAuthPvtKeyPath, follow these steps:

  1. Log into Google Cloud Console with an administrator ID.

  2. Select the Navigation Menu in the upper left and go to IAM & Admin. All principals will be shown by default.

  3. Apply a filter of "BigQuery" to display only the service principals related to BigQuery. Note the value in the Principal column for the ID that Liquibase will use — for example: lbtest@bq123.iam.gserviceaccount.com. Use this service account email address as the value of the OAuthServiceAcctEmail property.

  4. To get the private key for the service account: In the left navigation menu, select Service Accounts. From the resulting list, select the same service account email from the previous step. The details page will open.

  5. Select the KEYS tab. Any existing keys will be displayed at the bottom.

  6. Click ADD KEY > Create new key.

  7. Choose P12 as the key type, then click CREATE. The key will be downloaded automatically. A prompt will also appear requesting a Private key password.

  8. Enter and save the private key password — you’ll need this later.

  9. Save the downloaded private key file and refer to its local path in the OAuthPvtKeyPath property of your JDBC URL.

3

Test connection

1. Create a text file called changelog (.sql, .yaml, .json, or .xml) in your project directory and add a changeset.

If you have already created a changelog using the init project command, you can use that instead of creating a new file. When adding onto an existing changelog, be sure to only add the changeset and not duplicate the changelog header.

--liquibase formatted sql
--changeset your.name:1
CREATE TABLE test_table (
  test_id INT NOT NULL,
  test_column INT,
  PRIMARY KEY (test_id) NOT ENFORCED
)

2. Navigate to your project folder in the CLI and run the Liquibase status command to see whether the connection is successful:

liquibase status --username=test --password=test --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

Note: You can specify arguments in the CLI or keep them in the Liquibase properties file.

If your connection is successful, you'll see a message like this:

4 changesets have not been applied to <your_connection_url> Liquibase command 'status' was executed successfully.

3. Inspect the deployment SQL with the update-sql command:

liquibase update-sql --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

If the SQL that Liquibase generates isn't what you expect, you should review your changelog file and make any necessary adjustments.

4. Then execute these changes to your database with the update command:

liquibase update --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

If your update is successful, Liquibase runs each changeset and displays a summary message ending with:

Liquibase: Update has been successful. Liquibase command 'update' was executed successfully.

5. From a database UI tool, ensure that your database contains the test_table object you added along with the DATABASECHANGELOG table and DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK table.

Now you're ready to start deploying database changes with Liquibase.