drop-role-transact-sql.md

title	description	author	ms.author	ms.date	ms.service	ms.subservice	ms.topic	f1_keywords	helpviewer_keywords	dev_langs	monikerRange
DROP ROLE (Transact-SQL)	DROP ROLE (Transact-SQL)	VanMSFT	vanto	05/11/2017	sql	t-sql	reference	DROP ROLE DROP_ROLE_TSQL	deleting roles database roles [SQL Server], removing removing roles DROP ROLE statement roles [SQL Server], removing dropping roles	TSQL	>=aps-pdw-2016||=azure-sqldw-latest||>=sql-server-2016||>=sql-server-linux-2017||=azuresqldb-mi-current

DROP ROLE (Transact-SQL)

[!INCLUDE sql-asdbmi-asa-pdw]

Removes a role from the database.

:::image type="icon" source="../../includes/media/topic-link-icon.svg" border="false"::: Transact-SQL syntax conventions

Syntax

-- Syntax for SQL Server  
  
DROP ROLE [ IF EXISTS ] role_name  

-- Syntax for Azure Synapse Analytics and Parallel Data Warehouse  

DROP ROLE role_name  

[!INCLUDEsql-server-tsql-previous-offline-documentation]

Arguments

IF EXISTS
Applies to: [!INCLUDEssNoVersion] ( [!INCLUDEsssql16-md] through current version).

Conditionally drops the role only if it already exists.

role_name
Specifies the role to be dropped from the database.

Remarks

Roles that own securables cannot be dropped from the database. To drop a database role that owns securables, you must first transfer ownership of those securables or drop them from the database. Roles that have members cannot be dropped from the database. To drop a role that has members, you must first remove members of the role.

To remove members from a database role, use ALTER ROLE (Transact-SQL).

You cannot use DROP ROLE to drop a fixed database role.

Information about role membership can be viewed in the sys.database_role_members catalog view.

Caution

[!INCLUDEssCautionUserSchema]

To remove a server role, use DROP SERVER ROLE (Transact-SQL).

Permissions

Requires ALTER ANY ROLE permission on the database, or CONTROL permission on the role, or membership in the db_securityadmin.

Examples

The following example drops the database role purchasing from the [!INCLUDE sssampledbobject-md] database.

DROP ROLE purchasing;  
GO  

See Also

CREATE ROLE (Transact-SQL)
ALTER ROLE (Transact-SQL)
Principals (Database Engine)
EVENTDATA (Transact-SQL)
sp_addrolemember (Transact-SQL)
sys.database_role_members (Transact-SQL)
sys.database_principals (Transact-SQL)
Security Functions (Transact-SQL)