Route refresh mechanism for border gateway protocol link state

A method is implemented by a network device acting as a border gateway protocol (BGP) speaker in a network including a plurality of network devices. The method implements selective route refresh for BGP link state (BGP-LS) to reduce communication overhead in sharing network topology information with other BGP speakers in the network. The method includes receiving an advanced route refresh message from a peer BGP speaker, where the advanced route refresh message includes an address family identifier (AFI), a subsequent address family identifier (SAFI), and one or more parameters associated with the AFI and the SAFI. The method further includes determining a subset of network topology information that matches the AFI, the SAFI, and the one or more parameters in the received advanced route refresh message and transmitting the subset of network topology information to the peer BGP speaker.