diff --git a/Dockerfile.pg b/Dockerfile.pg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..225043d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Dockerfile.pg
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+# Custom arm64 PostgreSQL 16 image with PostGIS 3 + TimescaleDB 2.
+# Timescale's published timescaledb-postgis image is amd64-only, so we build
+# our own on Debian 12 (arm64). The app only uses standard SQL types (UUID,
+# JSON, TSVECTOR, float lat/lon), so pg16 is fully sufficient.
+FROM debian:12
+
+ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
+
+RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
+        ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release && \
+    install -d /usr/share/postgresql-common/pgdg && \
+    curl -fsSL -o /usr/share/postgresql-common/pgdg/apt.postgresql.org.asc \
+        https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc && \
+    echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/postgresql-common/pgdg/apt.postgresql.org.asc] \
+        https://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt bookworm-pgdg main" \
+        > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list && \
+    curl -fsSL https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/timescale/timescaledb/script.deb.sh | bash && \
+    apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
+        postgresql-16 postgresql-16-postgis-3 timescaledb-2-postgresql-16 && \
+    # load TimescaleDB at startup
+    sed -ri "s/^#?shared_preload_libraries = .*/shared_preload_libraries = 'timescaledb'/" \
+        /etc/postgresql/16/main/postgresql.conf && \
+    rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
+
+# Match the official postgres image layout so volume mounts/behavior are familiar.
+VOLUME ["/var/lib/postgresql/data"]
+EXPOSE 5432
+
+# Run as the postgres user (uid 999) like the official image.
+USER postgres
+ENV PGDATA=/var/lib/postgresql/data
+ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/lib/postgresql/16/bin/postgres", "-D", "/etc/postgresql/16/main", "-c", "config_file=/etc/postgresql/16/main/postgresql.conf"]
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index dac36b4..ba89f54 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -9,7 +9,11 @@
 
 services:
   db:
-    image: timescale/timescaledb-postgis:latest-pg13
+    build:
+      context: .
+      dockerfile: Dockerfile.pg
+      platforms: ["linux/arm64"]
+    image: localhost/osint-dashboard-pg:latest
     container_name: osint-db
     restart: unless-stopped
     environment:
@@ -28,6 +32,7 @@ services:
 
   nats:
     image: nats:2.10
+    platform: linux/arm64
     container_name: osint-nats
     restart: unless-stopped
     profiles: ["ingest"]