How do you use Liquibase with multiple databases or schemas in a single application?

When an application uses multiple databases or schemas — for example, a multi-tenant SaaS app with one schema per tenant, or an application split across a billing schema and a product schema — Liquibase can manage each independently. The key is that each schema/database gets its own DATABASECHANGELOG table and its own Liquibase execution context.

In Spring Boot with multiple data sources, you configure multiple Liquibase beans manually since Spring Boot's auto-configuration only handles one:

@Configuration
public class LiquibaseConfig {

    @Bean
    @Primary
    public SpringLiquibase primaryLiquibase(
            @Qualifier("primaryDataSource") DataSource primaryDataSource) {
        SpringLiquibase liquibase = new SpringLiquibase();
        liquibase.setDataSource(primaryDataSource);
        liquibase.setChangeLog("classpath:db/changelog/primary/db.changelog-master.xml");
        return liquibase;
    }

    @Bean
    public SpringLiquibase billingLiquibase(
            @Qualifier("billingDataSource") DataSource billingDataSource) {
        SpringLiquibase liquibase = new SpringLiquibase();
        liquibase.setDataSource(billingDataSource);
        liquibase.setChangeLog("classpath:db/changelog/billing/db.changelog-master.xml");
        return liquibase;
    }
}

For per-tenant schema provisioning in multi-tenant applications, a common pattern is running Liquibase programmatically when a new tenant is created, using the tenant's schema name:

public void provisionTenantSchema(String schemaName) {
    SpringLiquibase liquibase = new SpringLiquibase();
    liquibase.setDataSource(sharedDataSource);
    liquibase.setChangeLog("classpath:db/changelog/tenant/db.changelog-master.xml");
    liquibase.setDefaultSchema(schemaName);
    liquibase.afterPropertiesSet();  // triggers migration immediately
}

Each schema gets its own DATABASECHANGELOG in that schema, keeping migrations isolated even when sharing a single database server.

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