diff --git a/.github/workflows/license.yml b/.github/workflows/license.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..c851bff3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/license.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+# KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+# specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+
+name: license
+
+# trigger for all PRs and changes to main
+on:
+  push:
+    branches:
+      - main
+  pull_request:
+
+jobs:
+
+  rat:
+    name: Release Audit Tool (RAT)
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
+      - name: Setup Python
+        uses: actions/setup-python@v5
+        with:
+          python-version: 3.8
+      - name: Audit licenses
+        run: ./dev/release/run-rat.sh .
diff --git a/dev/release/rat_exclude_files.txt b/dev/release/rat_exclude_files.txt
index 562eec2f..280b1bce 100644
--- a/dev/release/rat_exclude_files.txt
+++ b/dev/release/rat_exclude_files.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,8 @@
-# Files to exclude from the Apache Rat (license) check
-.gitignore
 .tool-versions
+target/*
+**.gitignore
+rat.txt
 dev/release/rat_exclude_files.txt
-fuzz/.gitignore
 sqlparser_bench/img/flamegraph.svg
-
+**Cargo.lock
+filtered_rat.txt