DROP ROLE (Transact-SQL)

**APPLIES TO:** SQL Server (starting with 2008) Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Data Warehouse Parallel Data Warehouse

Removes a role from the database.

Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions

Syntax

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

-- Syntax for Azure SQL Data Warehouse and Parallel Data Warehouse  
  
DROP ROLE role_name  

Arguments

IF EXISTS
Applies to: SQL Server SQL Server SQL Server 2016 (13.x) 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]
Beginning with SQL Server 2005, the behavior of schemas changed. As a result, code that assumes that schemas are equivalent to database users may no longer return correct results. Old catalog views, including sysobjects, should not be used in a database in which any of the following DDL statements have ever been used: CREATE SCHEMA, ALTER SCHEMA, DROP SCHEMA, CREATE USER, ALTER USER, DROP USER, CREATE ROLE, ALTER ROLE, DROP ROLE, CREATE APPROLE, ALTER APPROLE, DROP APPROLE, ALTER AUTHORIZATION. In such databases you must instead use the new catalog views. The new catalog views take into account the separation of principals and schemas that was introduced in SQL Server 2005. For more information about catalog views, see [Catalog Views (Transact-SQL)](../relational-databases/system-catalog-views/catalog-views-transact-sql.md).

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 AdventureWorks2012 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)