How to fix Permission denied for table in PostgreSQL

Connect as a superuser or table owner and check who has what permissions:

\dp schema_name.table_name

Or query the information schema:

SELECT grantee, privilege_type
FROM information_schema.role_table_grants
WHERE table_name = 'table_name';

This shows you which roles have which privileges (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, TRUNCATE, etc.).

Connect as the table owner or a superuser and grant the necessary privileges:

For SELECT only:

GRANT SELECT ON table_name TO username;

For full access:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON table_name TO username;

For specific operations:

GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE ON table_name TO username;

Replace table_name with your actual table name and username with the role that needs access.

The user must also have USAGE privilege on the schema containing the table, otherwise they still cannot access it:

GRANT USAGE ON SCHEMA schema_name TO username;

For the public schema:

GRANT USAGE ON SCHEMA public TO username;

Without USAGE on the schema, users cannot "see" or access any tables within it, regardless of table-level permissions.

If the table has an auto-incrementing column (SERIAL or IDENTITY), also grant privileges on the underlying sequence:

GRANT USAGE, SELECT ON ALL SEQUENCES IN SCHEMA schema_name TO username;

Otherwise, INSERT operations will fail with "permission denied for sequence."

To automatically grant privileges to this user on all future tables created in the schema, use ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES:

ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES IN SCHEMA public GRANT SELECT ON TABLES TO username;
ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES IN SCHEMA public GRANT ALL ON TABLES TO username;

This prevents the same permission issues from occurring when new tables are created.

Switch to the user account (or test with their connection string) and verify the query now works:

SELECT * FROM table_name LIMIT 1;

If you still get permission denied, double-check that all three requirements are met: (1) table privileges granted, (2) schema USAGE granted, (3) sequence privileges granted (if applicable).