Introduction to INFORMATION_SCHEMA

The BigQuery INFORMATION_SCHEMA views are read-only, system-defined views that provide metadata information about your BigQuery objects. The following table lists all INFORMATION_SCHEMA views that you can query to retrieve metadata information:

Resource type	INFORMATION_SCHEMA View
Access control	`OBJECT_PRIVILEGESscience`
BI Engine	`BI_CAPACITIES` `BI_CAPACITY_CHANGES`
Configurations	`EFFECTIVE_PROJECT_OPTIONS` `ORGANIZATION_OPTIONS` `ORGANIZATION_OPTIONS_CHANGES` `PROJECT_OPTIONS` `PROJECT_OPTIONS_CHANGES`
Datasets	`SCHEMATA SCHEMATA_LINKS SCHEMATA_OPTIONS SHARED_DATASET_USAGE SCHEMATA_REPLICASscience`
Jobs	`JOBS_BY_PROJECT^†` `JOBS_BY_USER` `JOBS_BY_FOLDER` `JOBS_BY_ORGANIZATION`
Jobs by timeslice	`JOBS_TIMELINE_BY_PROJECT^†` `JOBS_TIMELINE_BY_USER` `JOBS_TIMELINE_BY_FOLDER` `JOBS_TIMELINE_BY_ORGANIZATION`
Reservations	`ASSIGNMENTS_BY_PROJECT^†` `ASSIGNMENT_CHANGES_BY_PROJECT^†` `CAPACITY_COMMITMENTS_BY_PROJECT^†` `CAPACITY_COMMITMENT_CHANGES_BY_PROJECT^†` `RESERVATIONS_BY_PROJECT^†` `RESERVATION_CHANGES_BY_PROJECT^†` `RESERVATIONS_TIMELINE_BY_PROJECT^†`
Routines	`PARAMETERS` `ROUTINES` `ROUTINE_OPTIONS`
Search indexes	`SEARCH_INDEXES` `SEARCH_INDEX_COLUMNS`
Sessions	`SESSIONS_BY_PROJECT^†` `SESSIONS_BY_USER`
Streaming	`STREAMING_TIMELINE_BY_PROJECT^†` `STREAMING_TIMELINE_BY_FOLDER` `STREAMING_TIMELINE_BY_ORGANIZATION`
Tables	`COLUMNS` `COLUMN_FIELD_PATHS` `CONSTRAINT_COLUMN_USAGE` `KEY_COLUMN_USAGE` `PARTITIONSscience` `TABLES` `TABLE_OPTIONS` `TABLE_CONSTRAINTS` `TABLE_SNAPSHOTS` `TABLE_STORAGE_BY_PROJECT^†` `TABLE_STORAGE_BY_ORGANIZATION` `TABLE_STORAGE_USAGE_TIMELINEscience` `TABLE_STORAGE_USAGE_TIMELINE_BY_ORGANIZATIONscience`
Vector indexes	`VECTOR_INDEXES` `VECTOR_INDEX_COLUMNS` `VECTOR_INDEX_OPTIONS`
Views	`VIEWS` `MATERIALIZED_VIEWS`
Write API	`WRITE_API_TIMELINE_BY_PROJECT^†` `WRITE_API_TIMELINE_BY_FOLDER` `WRITE_API_TIMELINE_BY_ORGANIZATION`

^† For *BY_PROJECT views, the BY_PROJECT suffix is optional. For example, querying INFORMATION_SCHEMA.JOBS_BY_PROJECT and INFORMATION_SCHEMA.JOBS return the same results.

Pricing

For projects that use on-demand pricing, queries against INFORMATION_SCHEMA views incur a minimum of 10 MB of data processing charges, even if the bytes processed by the query are less than 10 MB. 10 MB is the minimum billing amount for on-demand queries. For more information, see On-demand pricing.

For projects that use capacity-based pricing, queries against INFORMATION_SCHEMA views and tables consume your purchased BigQuery slots. For more information, see capacity-based pricing.

Because INFORMATION_SCHEMA queries are not cached, you are charged each time you run an INFORMATION_SCHEMA query, even if the query text is the same each time you run it.

You are not charged storage fees for the INFORMATION_SCHEMA views.

Syntax

An INFORMATION_SCHEMA view needs to be qualified with a dataset or region.

Note: You must specify the location to query the INFORMATION_SCHEMA views. Querying the INFORMATION_SCHEMA views fails with the following error if the location of the query execution doesn't match the location of the dataset or regional qualifier used:

Table myproject: region-us.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.[VIEW] not found in location US

Dataset qualifier

When present, a dataset qualifier restricts results to the specified dataset. For example:

-- Returns metadata for tables in a single dataset.
SELECT * FROM myDataset.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES;

The following INFORMATION_SCHEMA views support dataset qualifiers:

COLUMNS
COLUMN_FIELD_PATHS
MATERIALIZED_VIEWS
PARAMETERS
PARTITIONS
ROUTINES
ROUTINE_OPTIONS
TABLES
TABLE_OPTIONS
VIEWS

Region qualifier

Region qualifiers are represented using a region-REGION syntax. Any dataset location name can be used for REGION. For example, the following region qualifiers are valid:

region-us
region-asia-east2
region-europe-north1

When present, a region qualifier restricts results to the specified location. For example, the following query returns metadata for all datasets in a project in the US multi-region:

-- Returns metadata for all datasets in a region.
SELECT * FROM region-us.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMATA;

The following INFORMATION_SCHEMA views don't support region qualifers:

If neither a region qualifier nor a dataset qualifier is specified, you will receive an error.

Project qualifier

When present, a project qualifier restricts results to the specified project. For example:

-- Returns metadata for the specified project and region.
SELECT * FROM myProject.`region-us`.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES;

-- Returns metadata for the specified project and dataset.
SELECT * FROM myProject.myDataset.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES;

All INFORMATION_SCHEMA views support project qualifiers. If a project qualifier is not specified, the view will default to the project in which the query is executing.

Specifying a project qualifier for organization-level views (e.g. STREAMING_TIMELINE_BY_ORGANIZATION) has no impact on the results.

Limitations

BigQuery INFORMATION_SCHEMA queries must be in GoogleSQL syntax. INFORMATION_SCHEMA does not support legacy SQL.
INFORMATION_SCHEMA query results are not cached.
INFORMATION_SCHEMA views cannot be used in DDL statements.
INFORMATION_SCHEMA views don't contain information about hidden datasets.
INFORMATION_SCHEMA queries with region qualifiers might include metadata from resources in that region from deleted datasets that are within your time travel window.
When you list resources from an INFORMATION_SCHEMA view, the permissions are checked only at the parent level, not at an individual row level. Therefore, any deny policy (preview) that conditionally targets an individual row using tags is ignored.