Database Owner

A database owner is the PostgreSQL role that created the database or was explicitly assigned ownership of it. The owner has full control over the database: they can drop it, modify its parameters, and grant or revoke privileges on it to other roles — regardless of the privileges that other superusers or roles might hold.

Key points:

• Ownership is stored in pg_database.datdba.
• Only the owner (or a superuser) can drop the database or alter its definition.
• The owner does not automatically have privileges on all objects inside the database — object-level privileges are separate.
• A non-superuser owner can only own a database if they have the CREATEDB privilege.

Permissions of the Database Owner

Action	Owner	Superuser	Other roles
Drop the database	Yes	Yes	No
Alter database parameters	Yes	Yes	No
Connect to the database	Yes (unless revoked)	Yes	Only if CONNECT granted
Create schemas inside it	Yes	Yes	Only if CREATE granted
Grant privileges on the database	Yes	Yes	No

Owning the database does not grant automatic access to schemas, tables, or other objects created by other roles inside it. Those require explicit GRANT statements.

Set the Owner at Creation

CREATE DATABASE mydb OWNER myrole;

Change the Owner of an Existing Database

ALTER DATABASE mydb OWNER TO newrole;

Only a superuser or the current owner can transfer ownership. The new owner must also have the CREATEDB privilege (unless they are a superuser).

Get the database owner

of the current database

SELECT u.usename AS owner
FROM pg_database d
JOIN pg_user u ON (d.datdba = u.usesysid)
WHERE d.datname = current_database();

of a database

SELECT d.datname as "Name",
pg_catalog.pg_get_userbyid(d.datdba) as "Owner"
FROM pg_catalog.pg_database d
WHERE d.datname = 'mydatabase'
ORDER BY 1;