In Oracle, use ROWNUM column... WHERE ROWNUM < 50000 but you cannot use ROWNUM > 50000 in Oracle 8i or 9i. I am not sure... it didn't work for me So I used MINUS operator. Your logic could work too. For eg. SELECT * FROM TAB1 MINUS SELECT * FROM TAB1 WHERE ROWNUM < 50 I think in SQL server, they use key word LIMIT I think. BTW, how many of you work in Oracle? I know there are bunch of guys in SQL server.