MS SQL Server - select first N rows

In this article, we would like to show you how to find and select the first row from a table in MS SQL Server.

Quick solution:

SELECT TOP N [column1], [column2], [columnN]
FROM [table_name];

Practical example

To show how to select the first N rows from a table, we will use the following table:

Note:

At the end of this article you can find database preparation SQL queries.

Example 1 - select all columns

In this example, we will select all the information (columns) about the first 3 users from the users table.

Query:

SELECT TOP 3 *
FROM [users];

Output:

Example 2 - select specified columns

In this example, we will find the first 3 users id,  name and email column information.

Query:

SELECT TOP 3 [id], [name], [email]
FROM [users];

Output:

Example 3 - first row in some order

In this example, we will select the first row in some order.

SELECT TOP 3 *
FROM [users]
ORDER BY [name];

Output:

Database preparation

create_tables.sql file:

CREATE TABLE [users] (
	[id] INT IDENTITY(1,1),
	[name] VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
	[email] VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
	[country] VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL,
	PRIMARY KEY ([id])
);

insert_data.sql file:

INSERT INTO [users]
	([name], [email], [country])
VALUES
	('Tom', 'tom@email.com', 'Poland'),
	('Chris', 'chris@email.com', 'Spain'),
	('Jack', 'jack@email.com', 'Spain'),
    ('Kim', 'kim@email.com', 'Vietnam'),
    ('Marco', 'marco@email.com', 'Italy'),
	('Kate', 'kate@email.com', 'Spain'),
	('Nam', 'nam@email.com', 'Vietnam');