Which privilege is required on the Stage to manage external tables?

• A. USAGE
• B. CREATE STAGE
• C. MODIFY
• D. OWNERSHIP

Answer: (A)

The ability to access the data location used by an external table hinges on having the USAGE privilege on that stage. When you define or query an external table, Snowflake needs to locate and read the files in the stage, and USAGE grants the necessary access to the stage itself. Other options serve different purposes—creating a stage adds a new location, modifying relates to changing stage metadata, and ownership is a broad, higher-level privilege not required for normal external-table operations. So, the required privilege on the Stage to manage external tables is USAGE.