Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer program product embodiments for performing external change detection without copying data from an external system. An embodiment operates by transmitting a registration request comprising data selection criteria to a data service at an external system. The external system generates a tracking token representing a transaction state of a data object satisfying the data selection criteria. The embodiment receives the tracking token. The embodiment detects a change to the data object in the external system using the tracking token. The embodiment receives the change to the data object from the external system based on the detecting. The embodiment then processes the change to the data object.