SQL Not

The NOT operator excludes records that match a condition. Learn NOT with WHERE, and common patterns like NOT IN, NOT BETWEEN, and NOT LIKE.

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SQL NOT Operator

The NOT operator is used to exclude records that match a condition. It is typically used together with WHERE.

Basic Syntax

SELECT column1, column2
FROM table_name
WHERE NOT condition;

Example: Exclude a Country

Return customers who are not from the USA:

SELECT name, country
FROM customers
WHERE NOT country = 'USA';

This is equivalent to:

SELECT name, country
FROM customers
WHERE country <> 'USA';

NOT with IN

NOT IN excludes rows that match any value in a list.

SELECT name, country
FROM customers
WHERE country NOT IN ('USA', 'Canada');

NOT with BETWEEN

NOT BETWEEN excludes values inside a range (it returns values outside the range).

SELECT name, price
FROM products
WHERE price NOT BETWEEN 50 AND 100;

NOT with LIKE

NOT LIKE excludes values that match a pattern.

SELECT name
FROM customers
WHERE name NOT LIKE 'A%';

NOT with EXISTS

NOT is also used with EXISTS (covered later) to exclude rows based on a subquery result.

Important Note About NULL

NULL means “unknown”. Comparisons with NULL do not behave like normal true/false logic. If a column can be NULL, conditions like NOT IN may return unexpected results when NULL is involved.

When you need to include or exclude NULL values explicitly, use IS NULL or IS NOT NULL.

SELECT name, phone
FROM customers
WHERE phone IS NOT NULL;

Common Mistakes

Forgetting that NULL is not equal to anything (use IS NULL / IS NOT NULL)
Using NOT without being clear about parentheses in complex logic
Using NOT IN when the compared column may contain NULL values

Next Step

Continue with SQL INSERT INTO to learn how to add new records to a table.

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