A single VARIANT value in Snowflake has a maximum size limit of16 MB(uncompressed). This limit applies to semi-structured data stored in VARIANT, such as JSON, XML, Avro, and Parquet objects.
This limit ensures efficient storage, query performance, and micro-partitioning. Exceeding the size results in load or processing errors. For ingestion, when loading large JSON files, it’s recommended to break them into multiple objects or use JSON Lines formatting.
Snowflake has introduced an optional behavior change bundle (2025_03), increasing the limit to128 MBfor accounts that enable it, but the standard default remains 16 MB.
Thus, under default behavior,16MBis the correct maximum value size.
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