SQL Server Error 15138

Error number

15138

Severity

16 (user-correctable error)

State

1

Product

Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine

Versions

All supported SQL Server versions (2016 to 2025), Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance

Category

Logins & Permissions

Last reviewed

24 October 2026

What it means

Error 15138 means DROP USER or DROP ROLE was refused because that user or role is still the owner of a schema in the database; transfer the schema to another owner first.

Every schema has exactly one owner, a database principal (a user or a role). SQL Server will not leave a schema without an owner, so DROP USER and DROP ROLE check sys.schemas first and stop with 15138 at severity 16 if the principal owns any schema. Nothing is dropped. The message does not name the schema, so you have to look it up.

The typical story: a user was created for a person or an application, and CREATE SCHEMA ... AUTHORIZATION (or the SQL Server Management Studio user dialog, Owned Schemas page) made it the owner. Months later the person leaves and the drop fails. The objects inside the schema are not the problem; ownership of the schema is. A related check exists for roles owned by a user: that case raises error 15421 (owns a database role) instead.

Common causes

• The user was given ownership of a schema with CREATE SCHEMA name AUTHORIZATION user or on the Owned Schemas page of the user properties.
• A schema with the same name as the user was created by a script or tool that gives every user its own schema, so the user owns "its" schema.
• A database role being dropped owns a schema (role-owned schemas are common in shared reporting databases).
• A cleanup script drops users in a loop without transferring their schemas first.

Diagnose it

Read-only These queries only read metadata and dynamic management views. They do not change data, permissions or configuration, so they are safe to run first.

SELECT s.name AS schema_name, dp.name AS owner_name, dp.type_desc
FROM sys.schemas AS s
JOIN sys.database_principals AS dp ON dp.principal_id = s.principal_id
WHERE dp.name = N'report_owner';

SELECT s.name AS schema_name, COUNT(o.object_id) AS objects
FROM sys.schemas AS s
JOIN sys.database_principals AS dp ON dp.principal_id = s.principal_id
LEFT JOIN sys.objects AS o ON o.schema_id = s.schema_id
WHERE dp.name = N'report_owner'
GROUP BY s.name;

SELECT r.name AS role_name, o.name AS owner_name
FROM sys.database_principals AS r
JOIN sys.database_principals AS o ON o.principal_id = r.owning_principal_id
WHERE r.type = 'R'
  AND o.name = N'report_owner';

How to fix it

Each fix is labelled with what it changes. Try read-only checks and the least invasive fix first, and test changes outside production.

ALTER AUTHORIZATION ON SCHEMA::reporting TO dbo;

DROP USER report_owner;

DROP SCHEMA reporting;

DROP USER report_owner;

SELECT N'ALTER AUTHORIZATION ON SCHEMA::' + QUOTENAME(s.name) + N' TO dbo;'
FROM sys.schemas AS s
JOIN sys.database_principals AS dp ON dp.principal_id = s.principal_id
WHERE dp.name = N'report_owner';

Examples

Dropping a user that owns a schema

CREATE USER report_owner WITHOUT LOGIN;
GO
CREATE SCHEMA reporting AUTHORIZATION report_owner;
GO
DROP USER report_owner;

Msg 15138, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
The database principal owns a schema in the database, and cannot be dropped.

Dropping a role that owns a schema

CREATE ROLE etl_role;
GO
CREATE SCHEMA staging AUTHORIZATION etl_role;
GO
DROP ROLE etl_role;

Msg 15138, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
The database principal owns a schema in the database, and cannot be dropped.

How to prevent it

Let schemas be owned by dbo or by a role, never by an individual person's user, and grant people permissions on the schema instead of ownership. Ownership by a role survives staff changes; ownership by a person turns every leaver into a 15138.

Make user removal a small script that first lists and transfers owned schemas and roles, then drops the user. The SQL Server security lesson covers how users, roles and schemas fit together.

Common questions

Learn more on CodeWithSQL

• SQL Server security: logins, users and permissions

Official documentation

• ALTER AUTHORIZATION (Transact-SQL)
• DROP USER (Transact-SQL)
• Database engine events and errors 15000 to 15999 (Microsoft Learn)

Last technically reviewed 24 October 2026; examples and diagnostics run on SQL Server 2025 (17.0.1145.4). Message text checked against the engine's sys.messages catalogue.