Setting Up GA4 BigQuery Export: A Step-by-Step Guide

Why Export GA4 Data to BigQuery

GA4's built-in reports are powerful but limited: data is sampled in high-traffic properties, retention is capped at 14 months, and many advanced analyses (cohort analysis, custom attribution, user-level path analysis) require the raw data. Exporting to BigQuery gives you the complete, unsampled event-level data with no retention limit — enabling SQL analysis beyond what GA4's interface provides.

Prerequisites

• A Google Analytics 4 property (GA4 Standard or GA4 360)
• A Google Cloud Platform (GCP) project with billing enabled
• BigQuery API enabled in the GCP project
• The GA4 property admin role OR Editor role in GCP

Note: GA4 BigQuery export is free for GA4 Standard properties for streaming exports. Storage and query costs in BigQuery are charged separately (typically a few dollars per month for most businesses).

Step 1: Create a GCP Project

1. Go to console.cloud.google.com
2. Click "Create Project" → name it (e.g. "yourcompany-analytics")
3. Enable billing: Billing → Link a billing account
4. Enable BigQuery API: APIs & Services → Enable APIs → search "BigQuery API" → Enable

Step 2: Link GA4 to BigQuery

1. GA4 Admin → Product Links → BigQuery Links → Link
2. Choose your GCP project
3. Select export type: Daily (recommended for most uses) or Streaming (real-time but costs more)
4. Choose which events to export: All events (recommended) or specific events
5. Choose your BigQuery location (region — pick the same region as where your data needs to stay)
6. Submit

The first export typically arrives within 24 hours. Daily exports land each morning for the previous day's data.

Step 3: Verify the Export

1. Go to BigQuery (console.cloud.google.com → BigQuery)
2. Your project → datasets → a dataset named with your GA4 property ID (e.g. analytics_123456789)
3. Inside: two table types: events_YYYYMMDD (daily export tables) and events_intraday_YYYYMMDD (same-day streaming)
4. Click events_YYYYMMDD → Preview tab → should show rows of event data

Step 4: Run Your First Query

SELECT
  event_name,
  COUNT(*) as event_count
FROM `project-id.analytics_123456789.events_*`
WHERE _TABLE_SUFFIX BETWEEN '20260101' AND '20260131'
GROUP BY event_name
ORDER BY event_count DESC

This shows all events from January 2026 sorted by volume.

Summary

GA4 BigQuery export requires a GCP project with billing, BigQuery API enabled, and linking via GA4 Admin → BigQuery Links. Daily exports arrive the morning after the event date. Data lands in a dataset named analytics_PROPERTYID with daily table shards. BigQuery exports are free from GA4's side — you pay only for BigQuery storage (cents per GB) and queries (from $5/TB processed, with 1TB/month free).

See our BigQuery Setup service for professional configuration.

Need GA4 BigQuery export set up? Contact Adslytics.