Offsets count from zero: OFFSET 0 skips nothing, OFFSET 3 starts at the fourth row. An offset past the end is not an error — the result is simply empty. In MySQL an OFFSET must come with a LIMIT; to skip rows and keep "all the rest", the documented trick is a huge limit such as LIMIT 18446744073709551615 OFFSET 10. That need is rare.

MySQL's comma form

MySQL also accepts two numbers separated by a comma:

LIMIT 3, 5     -- skip 3, then take 5   (the same as LIMIT 5 OFFSET 3)

The comma form puts the offset first and the count second, the opposite of the reading order of LIMIT 5 OFFSET 3. It is everywhere in older PHP tutorials and an easy point for a trick question: LIMIT 10, 20 returns twenty rows, starting with the eleventh. SQLite accepts it with the same meaning; PostgreSQL does not. Prefer LIMIT … OFFSET … in anything you write — the words say which number is which.

One more MySQL detail: the numbers must be literal non-negative integers or ? placeholders in a prepared statement. LIMIT 2 + 1 and LIMIT (SELECT …) are syntax errors in MySQL, though some other engines accept expressions there.

The other spellings

LIMIT is not in the SQL standard, and every database family has its own way to say it. You will see all of them in interviews:

The standard form, OFFSET … ROWS FETCH FIRST|NEXT … ROWS ONLY, also offers FETCH FIRST 3 ROWS WITH TIES, which keeps any extra rows tied with the last one — PostgreSQL 13+, Oracle and SQL Server's TOP (3) WITH TIES support it, MySQL does not. In MySQL, "top three including ties" needs a subquery or a window function, both later in the course. The Oracle ROWNUM trap is worth knowing: ROWNUM is assigned before ORDER BY, so WHERE ROWNUM <= 5 ORDER BY salary DESC sorts five arbitrary rows instead of finding the top five.

LIMIT with WHERE and DISTINCT

Because LIMIT is last, it applies to whatever the rest of the query produced:

-- The three cheapest products that are in stock
SELECT name, price
FROM products
WHERE stock > 0
ORDER BY price, id
LIMIT 3;

-- The three highest distinct prices
SELECT DISTINCT price
FROM products
ORDER BY price DESC
LIMIT 3;

In the second query, duplicates are removed before the limit: if three products cost 900, the result is still three different prices. That ordering — distinct, then sort, then limit — is the heart of the classic "Nth highest salary" question in the top-N lesson.

LIMIT is not a performance switch by itself

LIMIT 10 can make a query cheap: if an index already delivers rows in the ORDER BY order, the database reads ten rows and stops. Without such an index it must find and sort every matching row before it can know which ten come first, so ORDER BY + LIMIT 10 on a million unindexed rows still sorts a million rows. And OFFSET 100000 reads and throws away a hundred thousand rows before returning anything. The next lesson, on pagination, is about what to do instead.

Before you move on

• LIMIT n keeps at most n rows; OFFSET m skips m first; both run last.
• Always pair them with an ORDER BY whose last key is unique.
• MySQL's LIMIT m, n is offset first, count second.
• SQL Server uses TOP and OFFSET … FETCH; the standard and Oracle use FETCH FIRST n ROWS ONLY.
• DISTINCT happens before LIMIT.