What Would PostgreSQL Do (WWPD)? > DROP [ COLUMN ] [ IF EXISTS ] column_name [ RESTRICT | CASCADE ] > > This form drops a column from a table. Indexes and table constraints involving the column will be automatically dropped as well. Multivariate statistics referencing the dropped column will also be removed if the removal of the column would cause the statistics to contain data for only a single column. You will need to say CASCADE if anything outside the table depends on the column, for example, foreign key references or views. If IF EXISTS is specified and the column does not exist, no error is thrown. In this case a notice is issued instead. From https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-altertable.html