A Microsoft Access delete query deletes records from a single database table or database tables. The following query deletes the 10 rows of the PurchaseOrderDetail table that have the earliest due dates. DELETE TOP (20) FROM Purchasing.PurchaseOrderDetail WHERE DueDate < '20020701'; GO If you have to use TOP to delete rows in a meaningful chronological order, you must use TOP together with ORDER BY in a subselect statement. Of all of the different action queries available in Microsoft Access (Append Queries, Update Queries, Make-Table Queries and Delete Queries) the delete query is one of the most dangerous.