What is the difference between the WHERE and HAVING clauses in SQL?
Aug 02, 2025 am 08:05 AMWHERE filters rows before grouping and cannot use aggregate functions, while HAVING filters groups after aggregation and can use aggregate functions. 2. WHERE is applied to individual rows before any grouping, whereas HAVING is used with GROUP BY to filter aggregated results. 3. The correct clause order in a SELECT statement is SELECT, FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, ORDER BY, ensuring WHERE precedes GROUP BY and HAVING follows it. 4. Use WHERE for filtering raw data and HAVING for filtering based on aggregate conditions, making WHERE suitable for row-level criteria and HAVING for group-level criteria.
The main difference between the WHERE
and HAVING
clauses in SQL lies in when they are applied in a query and what they filter.

1. WHERE Filters Rows Before Grouping
The WHERE
clause is used to filter individual rows before any grouping occurs. It operates on raw data from the table and cannot use aggregate functions like COUNT
, SUM
, AVG
, etc.
For example:

SELECT name, department, salary FROM employees WHERE salary > 50000;
This query retrieves only those employees whose salary is greater than 50,000 — each row is evaluated individually.
If you're using GROUP BY
, WHERE
filters the rows before they are grouped.

Example with GROUP BY
:
SELECT department, AVG(salary) FROM employees WHERE salary > 40000 GROUP BY department;
Here, only employees earning more than 40,000 are considered, then they are grouped by department to calculate average salary.
2. HAVING Filters Groups After Aggregation
The HAVING
clause is used to filter groups after the GROUP BY
operation. It’s typically used when you want to apply conditions on aggregate functions.
You cannot use aggregate functions in a WHERE
clause — that’s where HAVING
comes in.
Example:
SELECT department, AVG(salary) AS avg_sal FROM employees GROUP BY department HAVING AVG(salary) > 60000;
This query first groups employees by department, calculates the average salary per group, and then filters out departments where the average salary is not greater than 60,000.
Key Differences Summary
WHERE
→ filters individual rows before groupingHAVING
→ filters groups after aggregationWHERE
cannot use aggregate functionsHAVING
can use aggregate functionsHAVING
is usually used withGROUP BY
;WHERE
is not limited to grouped queries
Order in a Query
The correct order in a SELECT
statement is:
SELECT FROM WHERE GROUP BY HAVING ORDER BY
So, if you need to filter data:
- Use
WHERE
for conditions on raw data - Use
HAVING
for conditions on grouped or aggregated results
Basically, think:
WHERE comes first (on rows), HAVING comes later (on groups).
The above is the detailed content of What is the difference between the WHERE and HAVING clauses in SQL?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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