WHERE

Retrieves rows that match the condition.

SELECT column FROM table WHERE condition;

Retrieves rows within a range using BETWEEN.

SELECT column FROM table WHERE column BETWEEN value1 AND value2;

Retrieves rows that match any value in a list.

SELECT column FROM table WHERE column IN (value1, value2, value3);

Operator	Description
=	Retrieves rows where the value is equal.
<> or !=	Retrieves rows where the value is not equal.
<	Retrieves rows where the value is less than the specified value.
>	Retrieves rows where the value is greater than the specified value.
<=	Retrieves rows where the value is less than or equal to the specified value.
>=	Retrieves rows where the value is greater than or equal to the specified value.
BETWEEN value1 AND value2	Retrieves rows within the range from value1 to value2, inclusive.
IN (value1, value2, ...)	Retrieves rows that match any value in the list.
NOT IN (value1, value2, ...)	Retrieves rows that do not match any value in the list.

The following 'employees' table is used in the examples below.

Retrieves employees in the 'Capsule Corp' department.

sample_where.sql

SELECT name, department FROM employees WHERE department = 'Capsule Corp';

+--------+--------------+
| name   | department   |
+--------+--------------+
| Vegeta | Capsule Corp |
| Bulma  | Capsule Corp |
+--------+--------------+
2 rows in set

Retrieves employees with a salary of 300,000 or more.

sample_where.sql

SELECT name, salary FROM employees WHERE salary >= 300000;

+----------+--------+
| name     | salary |
+----------+--------+
| Son Goku | 300000 |
| Bulma    | 320000 |
+----------+--------+
2 rows in set

Retrieves employees with a salary between 250,000 and 350,000.

sample_where.sql

SELECT name, salary FROM employees WHERE salary BETWEEN 250000 AND 350000;

+----------+--------+
| name     | salary |
+----------+--------+
| Son Goku | 300000 |
| Vegeta   | 280000 |
| Bulma    | 320000 |
+----------+--------+
3 rows in set

Retrieves employees with a salary of 280,000 or 300,000.

sample_where.sql

SELECT name, salary FROM employees WHERE salary IN (280000, 300000);

+----------+--------+
| name     | salary |
+----------+--------+
| Son Goku | 300000 |
| Vegeta   | 280000 |
+----------+--------+
2 rows in set

Retrieves employees who are not in the 'NERV' department.

sample_where.sql

SELECT name, department FROM employees WHERE department <> 'NERV';

+----------+---------------+
| name     | department    |
+----------+---------------+
| Son Goku | Turtle School |
| Vegeta   | Capsule Corp  |
| Bulma    | Capsule Corp  |
+----------+---------------+
3 rows in set

The basic syntax of WHERE — including comparison operators, BETWEEN, and IN — works consistently across all major databases.

SELECT name, salary FROM employees WHERE salary >= 300000;
SELECT name, salary FROM employees WHERE salary BETWEEN 250000 AND 350000;
SELECT name, salary FROM employees WHERE salary IN (280000, 300000);

For the not-equal operator, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite both support != and <>. For Oracle and SQL Server, the standard SQL <> is recommended.

Standard SQL (works in all databases)

SELECT name FROM employees WHERE department <> 'NERV';

The WHERE clause can be used with SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE, and many other SQL statements. You can combine multiple conditions using AND and OR. See AND / OR / NOT for details.

BETWEEN performs a range search that includes both endpoints. salary BETWEEN 250000 AND 350000 is equivalent to salary >= 250000 AND salary <= 350000.

You cannot use = to check for NULL values. Use IS NULL instead. See IS NULL / IS NOT NULL for details.