Oct 17, 2025: Write support for externally managed Apache Iceberg™ tables and catalog-linked databases (General availability)¶
The following Apache Iceberg™ table features are now generally available are no longer in Preview:
- Write operations for externally managed Iceberg tables. 
- Catalog-linked databases that connect to external Iceberg REST catalogs. 
Key capabilities:
- Create new Iceberg tables directly in your remote catalog using Snowflake. 
- Perform full DML operations — for example, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, MERGE — on externally managed tables. 
- Create a Snowflake database that’s linked to your remote Iceberg REST catalog; for example, AWS Glue, Snowflake Open Catalog, and others. 
- Modify the properties of a catalog-linked database, including suspending or resuming automatic table discovery. 
- Discover and access multiple remote Iceberg tables without individually defining them in Snowflake. 
- Use vended credentials with external writes. - Note - CREATE ICEBERG TABLE (catalog-linked database) … AS SELECT isn’t supported with vended credentials. 
For more information, see the following topics:
Note
Billing for catalog-linked databases will start on November 17, 2025.