Oracle Spatial and Graph Licensing: What Enterprises Need to Know in 2026

The December 2019 Licensing Change

On December 5, 2019, Oracle announced that Oracle Spatial and Graph (OSG) — previously a paid option of Oracle Database Enterprise Edition — would be included in all Oracle Database Enterprise Edition licences at no additional charge. This change applied immediately to all customers with active Oracle Database Enterprise Edition licences and active support contracts. Existing Spatial and Graph option licences already owned were grandfathered, and no additional fees were required for any EE customer going forward.

The same announcement also covered Oracle Advanced Analytics (OAA), which includes Oracle Data Mining and Oracle R Enterprise. Both Spatial and Graph and Advanced Analytics moved from paid options to included features with the Oracle Database EE licence simultaneously. For customers who had been paying separate support fees on Spatial and Graph option licences, this change represented an immediate annual saving equal to 22 percent of the Spatial and Graph option licence value — an 8 percent-per-year-escalating saving that compounds significantly over time.

The inclusion was confirmed to cover all Oracle Database editions that include Enterprise Edition capabilities: Oracle Database Enterprise Edition on-premise, Oracle Database Enterprise Edition on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (BYOL), and Oracle Database Cloud Service (DBCS) Enterprise Edition. Standard Edition 2 was explicitly excluded from this change — customers running Standard Edition 2 do not receive Spatial and Graph as an included feature.

Oracle Locator vs Oracle Spatial and Graph: The Critical Distinction

A frequent source of confusion — and a common trigger for unnecessary audit claims before the 2019 change — is the difference between Oracle Locator and Oracle Spatial and Graph. These are two distinct capabilities with different licensing requirements, and Oracle's audit tools do not always distinguish between them cleanly.

Oracle Locator

Oracle Locator is a subset of spatial functionality that has always been included with all Oracle Database editions, including Standard Edition 2, at no additional cost. Locator provides basic spatial data types, indexing, and a limited set of spatial operators. It is included in Oracle Database 11g, 12c, 18c, 19c, 21c, and all subsequent versions across all editions. Organisations that use Locator functions only — without invoking any Spatial and Graph-only functions — have always been compliant without any Spatial and Graph licence.

Oracle Spatial and Graph

Oracle Spatial and Graph is the advanced geospatial and graph analysis capability that extends beyond Locator. Spatial functions beyond the basic Locator set — advanced topology, georaster, routing engine, network data model, and the full graph database capabilities — are Spatial and Graph features, not Locator features. Before December 2019, these functions required a separate Spatial and Graph option licence on top of Oracle Database EE. Since December 2019, they are included with EE at no additional cost.

The practical distinction matters most for Standard Edition 2 customers: Locator remains included with SE2, but Spatial and Graph functions require Oracle Database Enterprise Edition — which SE2 customers do not hold. An SE2 customer whose application invokes Spatial and Graph functions (not just Locator) is out of compliance and must either upgrade to Enterprise Edition or refactor the application to use only Locator-supported functions.

Audit Tool False Positives: A Persistent Risk

Even though Oracle Spatial and Graph is now free for EE customers, audit-related compliance issues have not disappeared. Oracle's License Management Services uses automated LMS collection scripts to gather database option usage data during audits. These scripts identify all geospatial schema objects, functions, and data types present in the database — and they do not always distinguish cleanly between Locator-only usage and Spatial and Graph usage.

The result is that LMS audit scripts frequently flag Spatial and Graph as a detected feature even when only Locator functions have been used. This is particularly common in older database versions (pre-19c) where the Spatial and Graph schemas are installed by default as part of the database installation, even if no Spatial and Graph-specific functions have ever been invoked. The presence of the Spatial and Graph schema in the database is not the same as actual use of licensed features — but Oracle's initial audit claim may treat the two as equivalent.

Organisations that receive an audit finding citing Spatial and Graph usage — particularly if they are confident they have only used Locator functions — have the right to challenge the finding. The appropriate response is a detailed technical analysis of the specific spatial functions called by application code, confirming which function calls map to Locator (always permitted) and which map to Spatial and Graph features (requiring EE after December 2019 with no separate charge). This analysis requires application-level investigation, as the LMS tool results alone are insufficient to distinguish Locator from Spatial and Graph invocations.

Pre-19c Documentation Gaps

An additional complexity exists for customers running Oracle Database in versions earlier than 19c. Oracle's official licensing documentation for Oracle Database 19c clearly states that Spatial and Graph is an included feature of Oracle Database EE. However, the program documentation for earlier database versions — 11g, 12c, 18c — was not retroactively updated when the licensing change was announced in December 2019. This creates a contractual ambiguity: from a purely document-based perspective, the "included licence" may not be explicitly stated in the licence terms for the older version in use.

Oracle's FAQ and official announcement documentation confirm the intent that the change applies to all customers with active EE licences and active support, regardless of the specific database version deployed. However, in audit negotiations where Oracle's LMS team is pressing a Spatial and Graph claim against a customer running an older database version, the documentation gap can complicate the defence. The safest resolution for customers still on pre-19c database versions is to upgrade to 19c (or later) where the included status is explicit in the programme documentation, and to document the upgrade decision and effective date.

Implications for Standard Edition 2 Customers

The December 2019 change explicitly did not extend the Spatial and Graph inclusion to Oracle Database Standard Edition 2. SE2 customers retain access to Oracle Locator as always — but the advanced Spatial and Graph functionality requires an Enterprise Edition licence that SE2 customers do not hold, and there is no separate Spatial and Graph option available for purchase under SE2 (it was always an EE option).

SE2 customers whose applications use geospatial functionality must verify whether their usage is limited to Locator functions or extends to Spatial and Graph features. Applications that use advanced topology analysis, georaster, routing services, or graph analytics are using Spatial and Graph features and require Enterprise Edition. Applications that use basic point-in-polygon queries, distance calculations, and standard SDO_GEOMETRY data types with the Locator function set are compliant on SE2.

For SE2 customers who discover they are using Spatial and Graph features, three options are available. First, upgrade to Oracle Database Enterprise Edition — which makes Spatial and Graph freely included. Second, refactor the application to remove any Spatial and Graph function calls, replacing them with Locator-compatible equivalents. Third, if the geospatial workload is growing, evaluate migration to a cloud database service where the EE capabilities and Spatial and Graph inclusion are available at subscription pricing.

Recovering Overpaid Support Fees

A specific opportunity for organisations that held separate Oracle Spatial and Graph option licences and continued paying support on those licences after December 2019 is to request a review of support fee adjustments. Oracle's standard contract terms do not provide for automatic refund of overpaid support, but organisations that can document they held and paid support on Spatial and Graph option licences beyond the date of the free-inclusion change may be able to apply the overpaid amount as a credit against future Oracle support invoices.

This requires a proactive conversation with Oracle's account management team, supported by licence and invoice documentation. Oracle will not raise this adjustment voluntarily. Organisations that consolidated their Spatial and Graph licences into a ULA or PULA prior to December 2019 should also review whether the Spatial and Graph component of that agreement can be unwound or reduced given the changed licensing status.

Compliance Actions for Oracle Database Customers

There are four practical compliance steps every Oracle Database customer should complete regarding Spatial and Graph. First, confirm your Oracle Database edition. If you are on Enterprise Edition, Spatial and Graph is included and no separate licence is required. If you are on Standard Edition 2, confirm that your application uses only Locator functions.

Second, review any existing Spatial and Graph option licences in your Oracle contract. If you hold separately purchased Spatial and Graph licences with active support, assess whether those support payments can be discontinued or renegotiated given that the feature is now included with your EE licence. The separate option licence may be redundant, and its annual support cost — escalating at 8 percent per year — may be eliminable at your next contract renewal.

Third, if you are running Oracle Database in a version earlier than 19c and receive a Spatial and Graph audit finding, engage a specialist to prepare a function-level analysis of your application's spatial API calls to distinguish Locator from Spatial and Graph usage. Do not accept LMS output that identifies Spatial and Graph schema presence as definitive evidence of Spatial and Graph feature usage.

Fourth, if you are on SE2 and have not audited your application's spatial function usage, conduct that review before Oracle does. The cost of an internal function-level review is a small fraction of the cost of an Oracle audit finding that requires an EE upgrade across your entire SE2 estate.