ANONYMOUS wrote: Yes you are right The SQL standard requires that HAVING must reference only columns in the GROUP BY clause or columns used in aggregate functions. However this usage of HAVING clause is supported and workable in SQLite & MySQL (Yes we are able to derive the correct query with this syntax) If we follow the SQL standard, the following query is both syntactically & semantically correct: SELECT creditcode, COUNT(cust_id) AS 'Number of Publishers' FROM publishers WHERE city IS NOT NULL OR phone IS NOT NULL OR creditcode IN ( SELECT creditcode FROM publishers GROUP BY creditcode HAVING COUNT(cust_id) > 2 ) GROUP BY creditcode ORDER BY creditcode;