Transaction Control in SQL
From the SQL cheat sheet · Transactions · verified Jul 2026
Transaction Control
BEGIN, COMMIT, ROLLBACK, and savepoints.
sql
BEGIN TRANSACTION;
UPDATE accounts SET balance = balance - 100 WHERE id = 1;
UPDATE accounts SET balance = balance + 100 WHERE id = 2;
COMMIT;
-- or ROLLBACK; to undo💡 Transactions are atomic — either all operations succeed (COMMIT) or none do (ROLLBACK)
⚡ Use savepoints for partial rollbacks without losing the entire transaction
📌 Always COMMIT or ROLLBACK — uncommitted transactions hold locks and block other queries
🟢 Most databases auto-commit individual statements — BEGIN is needed for multi-statement atomicity
transactionscommitrollbacksavepoint