---
title: add_tiering_policy() | Tiger Data Docs
description: Add a policy to automatically tier older chunks to object storage
---

Create a policy that periodically moves chunks older than a given age from local storage to tiered object storage. The policy runs as a Tiger Cloud background job and applies to all chunks of the target hypertable, including the materialized hypertables that back continuous aggregates.

Chunks selected for tiering are first frozen and then queued. A separate asynchronous worker uploads them to the configured object store and deletes the local copy when the upload completes. Frozen chunks remain queryable until the upload finishes.

By default the policy runs once per hour. To change the interval, call [`alter_job`](/reference/timescaledb/jobs-automation/alter_job/index.md) against the returned `job_id`.

Note

For hypertables and continuous aggregates partitioned on an integer column, an `integer_now_func` must be configured on the underlying hypertable before adding a tiering policy. If `integer_now_func` is not set, `add_tiering_policy` raises an exception.

## Samples

- **Tier chunks older than three weeks on the `assets_candlestick_daily` hypertable**:

  ```
  SELECT add_tiering_policy('assets_candlestick_daily', INTERVAL '3 weeks');
  ```

- **Tier chunks older than 1,000,000 ticks on an integer-partitioned hypertable**:

  ```
  SELECT add_tiering_policy('events', BIGINT '1000000');
  ```

- **Add a tiering policy to a continuous aggregate, ignoring the call when one already exists**:

  ```
  SELECT add_tiering_policy('daily_summary', INTERVAL '90 days', if_not_exists => true);
  ```

## Arguments

The syntax is:

```
SELECT add_tiering_policy(
    hypertable = '<hypertable_or_cagg_name>',
    move_after = <interval_or_integer>,
    if_not_exists = true | false
);
```

| Name            | Type         | Default | Required | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
| --------------- | ------------ | ------- | -------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `hypertable`    | `REGCLASS`   | -       | ✔        | Name of the hypertable or continuous aggregate to create the tiering policy for.                                                                                                                                                       |
| `move_after`    | `ANYELEMENT` | -       | ✔        | Chunks fully older than this value are tiered. The type must match the type of the primary partitioning column: `INTERVAL` for `TIMESTAMP`, `TIMESTAMPTZ`, or `DATE`; `BIGINT`, `INTEGER`, or `SMALLINT` for integer-based dimensions. |
| `if_not_exists` | `BOOLEAN`    | `false` | -        | When `true`, emit a notice rather than an error if a tiering policy already exists on the relation, and return the existing `job_id`.                                                                                                  |

## Returns

| Column   | Type      | Description                                                     |
| -------- | --------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `job_id` | `INTEGER` | Tiger Cloud background job ID created to implement this policy. |

## Errors

`add_tiering_policy` raises an exception when:

- The supplied relation is neither a hypertable nor a continuous aggregate.
- A tiering policy already exists on the relation and `if_not_exists` is `false`.
- The type of `move_after` does not match the primary dimension type.
- The hypertable or its underlying hypertable is integer-partitioned and no `integer_now_func` is set.