START TRANSACTION / BEGIN

Use START TRANSACTION or BEGIN to start an explicit transaction. Finish its data changes with COMMIT or ROLLBACK.

Syntax

START TRANSACTION;
BEGIN;

Example

Run this example on the same client connection in a test database you own. It creates a test table and removes it afterwards.

CREATE TABLE txn_example (id INT PRIMARY KEY);
START TRANSACTION;
INSERT INTO txn_example VALUES (1);
ROLLBACK;
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM txn_example;
DROP TABLE txn_example;

The count after rollback is 0.

See Transactions and INSERT.

Last updated on Oct 19, 2026