In this Azure SQL tutorial, I will explain the error ‘Password validation failed. The password does not meet policy requirements because it is not complex enough.‘
Recently, I was trying to change my user password in the Azure SQL database. I was using SQL Server management studio to connect to my Azure SQL database.
I was trying to change the password with the ALTER USER statement. The query is written below:
ALTER USER TestUser WITH PASSWORD= 'password' OLD_PASSWORD= 'User@123'
The old password is ‘User@123′ and I was trying to change it to the new password which was ‘password’.
This query resulted in an error as shown below in the image:

Reason: Password validation failed sql server
I searched about the error on the web and found why I was getting this error.
When you want to set a new password for any user, you have to set the password according to the password policy implemented by Microsoft Azure.
The following are the rules of the password policy that you have to follow while changing the user password in the Azure SQL database:
- The length of the password should be equal to or greater than 8 characters.
- The password should not contain the username whose password you are going to set.
- The password should follow at least one of the three rules out of four:
- The password should contain Latin uppercase letters(A to Z)
- It should container Latin lowercase letters(a to z)
- Numeric values(0 to 9)
- Non alpanumeric charachters like the symbols on your keyboard.
Solution: Azure Password validation failed
Following the Azure password policy, I selected a new password and changed the user password to this user password:
ALTER USER TestUser WITH PASSWORD= 'Password@123' OLD_PASSWORD= 'User@123'
You can also use a password generator while creating a new password for the Azure SQL database.
In this way, I was able to resolve the error Azure sql password validation failed.
- Password validation failed. The password does not meet policy requirements because it is not complex enough.
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I am Bijay having more than 15 years of experience in the Software Industry. During this time, I have worked on MariaDB and used it in a lot of projects. Most of our readers are from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
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