DB Compatibility Level

[markf7962]

I noticed new Fabric SQL DB's are now created at 170 compatibility level (SQL 2025) but my older ones are 160 (SQL 2022).

Is there a way to upgrade the older ones given that below is not allowed on Fabric SQL DB's ?

ALTER DATABASE [<YOUR DB NAME>] SET COMPATIBILITY_LEVEL = 170 
Apologies if this has already been asked and answered.

Cheers

[markf7962]

OK, lots of viewers and no comments. If the answer to this is that you can do it from "Microsoft Fabric" in the Azure Portal , just wanted to say that for my experiment, I have nothing in there to manage, but I do have Lakehouses, Warehouses and SQL DB's in my Power BI Tenant. So struggling to see how to uplift existing DB's to SQL 2025 

[v-bmanikante]

Hi @markf7962 ,

Thank you for reaching out to Microosft Fabric Community Forum.

New databases created in Microsoft Fabric SQL DB now default to level 170 (SQL 2025).Older Fabric SQL databases may still use level 160 (SQL 2022). You cannot manually change the compatibility level in Microsoft Fabric SQL DBs using

ALTER DATABASE [<YOUR DB NAME>] SET COMPATIBILITY_LEVEL =170 

To use a different level, you must create a new database with the desired level and migrate the data.

Please refer the below documents:

• ALTER DATABASE - Compatibility Level
• View or Change Compatibility Level
• Fabric SQL & Compatibility Level 170 Announcement
• Upgrade Databases Using Query Tuning Assistant - SQL Server | Microsoft Learn

If this post helps, then please consider Accepting as solution to help the other members find it more quickly, don't forget to give a "Kudos" – I’d truly appreciate it!

Regards,

B Manikanteswara Reddy

[markf7962 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for confirming my suspicion. I had already used sqlpackage to do exactly that, but then of course I had to fix up the change of lineage for the Semantic Model sitting on top of the old DB. Thanks to Tabular Editor for enabling that outcome.

Lets hope there is support for a better way of dealing with things like this as Fabric matures as a platform.