man > CREATE_ROLE(7)

CREATE ROLE(7)                     PostgreSQL 16.14 Documentation                     CREATE ROLE(7)

NAME
       CREATE_ROLE - define a new database role

SYNOPSIS
       CREATE ROLE name [ [ WITH ] option [ ... ] ]

       where option can be:

             SUPERUSER | NOSUPERUSER
           | CREATEDB | NOCREATEDB
           | CREATEROLE | NOCREATEROLE
           | INHERIT | NOINHERIT
           | LOGIN | NOLOGIN
           | REPLICATION | NOREPLICATION
           | BYPASSRLS | NOBYPASSRLS
           | CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit
           | [ ENCRYPTED ] PASSWORD 'password' | PASSWORD NULL
           | VALID UNTIL 'timestamp'
           | IN ROLE role_name [, ...]
           | IN GROUP role_name [, ...]
           | ROLE role_name [, ...]
           | ADMIN role_name [, ...]
           | USER role_name [, ...]
           | SYSID uid

DESCRIPTION
       CREATE ROLE adds a new role to a PostgreSQL database cluster. A role is an entity that can
       own database objects and have database privileges; a role can be considered a “user”, a
       “group”, or both depending on how it is used. Refer to Chapter 22 and Chapter 21 for
       information about managing users and authentication. You must have CREATEROLE privilege or be
       a database superuser to use this command.

       Note that roles are defined at the database cluster level, and so are valid in all databases
       in the cluster.

       During role creation it is possible to immediately assign the newly created role to be a
       member of an existing role, and also assign existing roles to be members of the newly created
       role. The rules for which initial role membership options are enabled are described below in
       the IN ROLE, ROLE, and ADMIN clauses. The GRANT(7) command has fine-grained option control
       during membership creation, and the ability to modify these options after the new role is
       created.

PARAMETERS
       name
           The name of the new role.

       SUPERUSER
       NOSUPERUSER
           These clauses determine whether the new role is a “superuser”, who can override all
           access restrictions within the database. Superuser status is dangerous and should be used
           only when really needed. You must yourself be a superuser to create a new superuser. If
           not specified, NOSUPERUSER is the default.

       CREATEDB
       NOCREATEDB
           These clauses define a role's ability to create databases. If CREATEDB is specified, the
           role being defined will be allowed to create new databases. Specifying NOCREATEDB will
           deny a role the ability to create databases. If not specified, NOCREATEDB is the default.
           Only superuser roles or roles with CREATEDB can specify CREATEDB.

       CREATEROLE
       NOCREATEROLE
           These clauses determine whether a role will be permitted to create, alter, drop, comment
           on, and change the security label for other roles. See role creation for more details
           about what capabilities are conferred by this privilege. If not specified, NOCREATEROLE
           is the default.

       INHERIT
       NOINHERIT
           This affects the membership inheritance status when this role is added as a member of
           another role, both in this and future commands. Specifically, it controls the inheritance
           status of memberships added with this command using the IN ROLE clause, and in later
           commands using the ROLE clause. It is also used as the default inheritance status when
           adding this role as a member using the GRANT command. If not specified, INHERIT is the
           default.

           In PostgreSQL versions before 16, inheritance was a role-level attribute that controlled
           all runtime membership checks for that role.

       LOGIN
       NOLOGIN
           These clauses determine whether a role is allowed to log in; that is, whether the role
           can be given as the initial session authorization name during client connection. A role
           having the LOGIN attribute can be thought of as a user. Roles without this attribute are
           useful for managing database privileges, but are not users in the usual sense of the
           word. If not specified, NOLOGIN is the default, except when CREATE ROLE is invoked
           through its alternative spelling CREATE USER.

       REPLICATION
       NOREPLICATION
           These clauses determine whether a role is a replication role. A role must have this
           attribute (or be a superuser) in order to be able to connect to the server in replication
           mode (physical or logical replication) and in order to be able to create or drop
           replication slots. A role having the REPLICATION attribute is a very highly privileged
           role, and should only be used on roles actually used for replication. If not specified,
           NOREPLICATION is the default. Only superuser roles or roles with REPLICATION can specify
           REPLICATION.

       BYPASSRLS
       NOBYPASSRLS
           These clauses determine whether a role bypasses every row-level security (RLS) policy.
           NOBYPASSRLS is the default. Only superuser roles or roles with BYPASSRLS can specify
           BYPASSRLS.

           Note that pg_dump will set row_security to OFF by default, to ensure all contents of a
           table are dumped out. If the user running pg_dump does not have appropriate permissions,
           an error will be returned. However, superusers and the owner of the table being dumped
           always bypass RLS.

       CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit
           If role can log in, this specifies how many concurrent connections the role can make. -1
           (the default) means no limit. Note that only normal connections are counted towards this
           limit. Neither prepared transactions nor background worker connections are counted
           towards this limit.

       [ ENCRYPTED ] PASSWORD 'password'
       PASSWORD NULL
           Sets the role's password. (A password is only of use for roles having the LOGIN
           attribute, but you can nonetheless define one for roles without it.) If you do not plan
           to use password authentication you can omit this option. If no password is specified, the
           password will be set to null and password authentication will always fail for that user.
           A null password can optionally be written explicitly as PASSWORD NULL.

               Note
               Specifying an empty string will also set the password to null, but that was not the
               case before PostgreSQL version 10. In earlier versions, an empty string could be
               used, or not, depending on the authentication method and the exact version, and libpq
               would refuse to use it in any case. To avoid the ambiguity, specifying an empty
               string should be avoided.
           The password is always stored encrypted in the system catalogs. The ENCRYPTED keyword has
           no effect, but is accepted for backwards compatibility. The method of encryption is
           determined by the configuration parameter password_encryption. If the presented password
           string is already in MD5-encrypted or SCRAM-encrypted format, then it is stored as-is
           regardless of password_encryption (since the system cannot decrypt the specified
           encrypted password string, to encrypt it in a different format). This allows reloading of
           encrypted passwords during dump/restore.

       VALID UNTIL 'timestamp'
           The VALID UNTIL clause sets a date and time after which the role's password is no longer
           valid. If this clause is omitted the password will be valid for all time.

       IN ROLE role_name
           The IN ROLE clause causes the new role to be automatically added as a member of the
           specified existing roles. The new membership will have the SET option enabled and the
           ADMIN option disabled. The INHERIT option will be enabled unless the NOINHERIT option is
           specified.

       IN GROUP role_name
           IN GROUP is an obsolete spelling of IN ROLE.

       ROLE role_name
           The ROLE clause causes one or more specified existing roles to be automatically added as
           members, with the SET option enabled. This in effect makes the new role a “group”. Roles
           named in this clause with the role-level INHERIT attribute will have the INHERIT option
           enabled in the new membership. New memberships will have the ADMIN option disabled.

       ADMIN role_name
           The ADMIN clause has the same effect as ROLE, but the named roles are added as members of
           the new role with ADMIN enabled, giving them the right to grant membership in the new
           role to others.

       USER role_name
           The USER clause is an obsolete spelling of the ROLE clause.

       SYSID uid
           The SYSID clause is ignored, but is accepted for backwards compatibility.

NOTES
       Use ALTER ROLE to change the attributes of a role, and DROP ROLE to remove a role. All the
       attributes specified by CREATE ROLE can be modified by later ALTER ROLE commands.

       The preferred way to add and remove members of roles that are being used as groups is to use
       GRANT and REVOKE.

       The VALID UNTIL clause defines an expiration time for a password only, not for the role per
       se. In particular, the expiration time is not enforced when logging in using a
       non-password-based authentication method.

       The role attributes defined here are non-inheritable, i.e., being a member of a role with,
       e.g., CREATEDB will not allow the member to create new databases even if the membership grant
       has the INHERIT option. Of course, if the membership grant has the SET option the member role
       would be able to SET ROLE to the createdb role and then create a new database.

       The membership grants created by the IN ROLE, ROLE, and ADMIN clauses have the role executing
       this command as the grantor.

       The INHERIT attribute is the default for reasons of backwards compatibility: in prior
       releases of PostgreSQL, users always had access to all privileges of groups they were members
       of. However, NOINHERIT provides a closer match to the semantics specified in the SQL
       standard.

       PostgreSQL includes a program createuser(1) that has the same functionality as CREATE ROLE
       (in fact, it calls this command) but can be run from the command shell.

       The CONNECTION LIMIT option is only enforced approximately; if two new sessions start at
       about the same time when just one connection “slot” remains for the role, it is possible that
       both will fail. Also, the limit is never enforced for superusers.

       Caution must be exercised when specifying an unencrypted password with this command. The
       password will be transmitted to the server in cleartext, and it might also be logged in the
       client's command history or the server log. The command createuser(1), however, transmits the
       password encrypted. Also, psql(1) contains a command \password that can be used to safely
       change the password later.

EXAMPLES
       Create a role that can log in, but don't give it a password:

           CREATE ROLE jonathan LOGIN;

       Create a role with a password:

           CREATE USER davide WITH PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4';

       (CREATE USER is the same as CREATE ROLE except that it implies LOGIN.)

       Create a role with a password that is valid until the end of 2004. After one second has
       ticked in 2005, the password is no longer valid.

           CREATE ROLE miriam WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'jw8s0F4' VALID UNTIL '2005-01-01';

       Create a role that can create databases and manage roles:

           CREATE ROLE admin WITH CREATEDB CREATEROLE;

COMPATIBILITY
       The CREATE ROLE statement is in the SQL standard, but the standard only requires the syntax

           CREATE ROLE name [ WITH ADMIN role_name ]

       Multiple initial administrators, and all the other options of CREATE ROLE, are PostgreSQL
       extensions.

       The SQL standard defines the concepts of users and roles, but it regards them as distinct
       concepts and leaves all commands defining users to be specified by each database
       implementation. In PostgreSQL we have chosen to unify users and roles into a single kind of
       entity. Roles therefore have many more optional attributes than they do in the standard.

       The behavior specified by the SQL standard is most closely approximated creating SQL-standard
       users as PostgreSQL roles with the NOINHERIT option, and SQL-standard roles as PostgreSQL
       roles with the INHERIT option.

SEE ALSO
       SET ROLE (SET_ROLE(7)), ALTER ROLE (ALTER_ROLE(7)), DROP ROLE (DROP_ROLE(7)), GRANT(7),
       REVOKE(7), createuser(1), createrole_self_grant

PostgreSQL 16.14                                2026                                  CREATE ROLE(7)