How do I export or download my Neon database as a SQL file?

Run pg_dump against a direct (non-pooled) connection string and omit the -F format flag to get plain SQL. Neon supports pg_dump from any client; the output is a portable .sql file you can edit, version, or replay with psql. See Migrate data from Postgres with pg_dump and pg_restore for the full command reference.

Export a plain SQL dump

Grab the direct connection string from the Connect widget on your Project Dashboard (toggle Connection pooling off so the hostname has no -pooler suffix). Then run:

pg_dump -d "postgresql://alex:AbC123dEf@ep-cool-darkness-a1b2c3d4.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/neondb" -f dump.sql

The result is a human-readable SQL script that recreates schema, data, and other objects in order.

Useful flags

# Schema only, no data
pg_dump -d "$NEON_URL" --schema-only -f schema.sql

# Data only, no DDL
pg_dump -d "$NEON_URL" --data-only -f data.sql

# Skip ALTER OWNER statements (recommended when restoring to a different role)
pg_dump -d "$NEON_URL" --no-owner -f dump.sql

# One specific table
pg_dump -d "$NEON_URL" -t public.customers -f customers.sql

The --no-owner flag is useful because roles created through Neon are members of neon_superuser but aren't full Postgres superusers, so they can't run ALTER OWNER. See Database object ownership considerations.

Plain SQL vs custom format

For programmatic restore with pg_restore, the custom-format archive is more flexible (parallel restore, selective object restore, compression):

pg_dump -Fc -d "$NEON_URL" -f dump.dump
pg_restore -d "$TARGET_URL" dump.dump

Choose plain SQL when you want to read, edit, or grep the output, or replay it with psql -f dump.sql. Choose -Fc when you want to restore selectively or in parallel.

Don't dump over a pooled connection

pg_dump uses session-level SET statements that aren't supported by Neon's PgBouncer transaction-mode pooling. Always use the direct hostname (no -pooler segment) for dumps. See PgBouncer issues 452 and 976 for background.

Match client and server versions

Use pg_dump from the same major Postgres version as your Neon project, or newer. Run pg_dump -V to check. Older clients can produce incomplete dumps for newer server features.