Help Center/ Distributed Message Service for RabbitMQ/ User Guide/ Configuring Virtual Hosts/ Managing RabbitMQ Queues/ Configuring a RabbitMQ Priority Queue
Updated on 2025-12-30 GMT+08:00
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Configuring a RabbitMQ Priority Queue

A priority queue is a special queue structure compared with the conventional first in first out (FIFO) rule. It features message consumption in priority-based order.

Priority queues are available in RabbitMQ 3.x.x and AMQP-0-9-1.

Notes and Constraints

  • In RabbitMQ 3.x.x, the priority value range is 0 to 255.
  • In RabbitMQ AMQP-0-9-1, the priority value range is 0 to 9.

Configuring a Priority Queue

  1. In queue declaration, set the x-max-priority parameter (for example, x-max-priority = 5). This parameter specifies the maximum priority supported by a queue. A larger value indicates a higher priority.
  2. In message sending, the priority attribute specifies the priority. A larger value indicates a higher priority.
  3. (Optional) Divide the queue into multiple sub-queues. Messages are processed in descending order of priority. Sample code: 

    String queueName = "queue"
channel.queueDeclare(queueName, true, false, false, args);
final AMQP.BasicProperties.Builder basicProps = new AMQP.BasicProperties().builder();
basicProps.priority(5);
channel.basicPublish("", queueName, basicProps.build(), "test".getBytes())

Parent topic: Managing RabbitMQ Queues