This article demonstrates how to use T-SQL to change the password for a SQL Server login.

You can change the password for another login (assuming you have the appropriate permissions), or you can change it for your own login. This article outlines both of these scenarios.

Example

To change the password for a SQL Server login, use the ALTER LOGIN statement with the WITH PASSWORD argument.

Here’s an example.

ALTER LOGIN Bart
    WITH PASSWORD = '$trongPwd123';

You can run that statement to change the password of your own login or another login, however, it does require that you have ALTER ANY LOGIN permission.

If you don’t have ALTER ANY LOGIN permission, you’ll get this error:

Msg 15151, Level 16, State 1, Line 2
Cannot alter the login 'Bart', because it does not exist or you do not have permission.

Change Your Own Password

You can use the statement from the previous example to change your own login’s password (i.e. when you’re logged in as the login). As mentioned, you’ll need ALTER ANY LOGIN permission.

However, you can still change your own password even if you don’t have ALTER ANY LOGIN permission.

The way to do this is by including your old password as well as the new password.

ALTER LOGIN Bart
    WITH PASSWORD = 'StrongPwd!'
    OLD_PASSWORD = '$trongPwd123';

I actually logged in as Bart and ran that statement and received the following confirmation.

Commands completed successfully.

Bart doesn’t actually have ALTER ANY LOGIN permission, but he was still able to change his own password by providing his old password.

Here’s what happens if Bart tries to change the password without supplying the old password.

ALTER LOGIN Bart
    WITH PASSWORD = 'WheelyStwongPwd!';

Result:

Msg 15151, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Cannot alter the login 'Bart', because it does not exist or you do not have permission.

But as you might expect, if I log in as sa and run it again, I’m able to change it without providing the old password.

ALTER LOGIN Bart
    WITH PASSWORD = 'WheelyStwongPwd!';

Result:

Commands completed successfully.