How to Rename a Table in PostgreSQL

Postgres tracks dependencies by internal object ID rather than by name, so views, foreign keys, sequences, and indexes follow the rename automatically and keep working. What does not follow is anything outside the database: application code, saved queries, dashboards, and dbt models still using the old name will fail.

ALTER TABLE orders RENAME TO customer_orders;

Move to another schema

SET SCHEMA moves the table without copying data, which is the usual way to retire something: park it in an archive schema, leave it a while, then drop it. Users need USAGE on the target schema to reach it there, and any query relying on search_path rather than a qualified name stops resolving it.

ALTER TABLE public.orders SET SCHEMA archive;