In modern versions of SQL Server (2014+) you can create the indexes when you create the table, e.g.: create table #t(id int primary key, a int, index ix_a nonclustered(a)) Also you can create the temp table before the snapshot transaction starts. Almost all DDL is prohibited within a `SNAPSHOT` transaction. `ALTER TABLE` and `TRUNCATE TABLE` are obviously not allowable. `CREATE TABLE` is whitelisted. `CREATE INDEX` _could_ be whitelisted, but simply isn't.