Cannot use a BREAK statement outside the scope of a WHILE statement

 Msg 135, Level 16, State 1, Line 1

Cannot use a BREAK statement outside the scope of a WHILE statement.

The BREAK statement exits the innermost loop in a WHILE or IF… ELSE statement. Any statements appearing after the END keyword, marking the end of the loop, are executed. BREAK is frequently, but not always, started by an IF test condition.

The error message occurs when using the BREAK statement outside a WHILE statement. Here are a few examples of how this error is encountered:

-- BREAK used inside an IF condition but outside a WHILE statement
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT custid FROM [dbo].[Customers]
               WHERE custname = 'Cust_1')
    BREAK

-- Misplaced BREAK Condition
DECLARE @Counter  INT
DECLARE @UserID   INT

SET @Counter = 0
SET @UserID = 1
WHILE EXISTS (SELECT * FROM [dbo].[UserTransaction]
              WHERE [UserID] = @UserID) 
    DELETE TOP (10) FROM [dbo].[UserTransaction]
    WHERE [UserID] = @UserID

    SET @Counter = Counter + 1

    IF @Counter > 10
        BREAK

Msg 135, Level 15, State 1, Line 38
Cannot use a BREAK statement outside the scope of a WHILE statement.

• The BREAK statement can only be used inside the scope of a WHILE statement. In cases when a set of Transact-SQL statements need to be skipped if a particular condition is not met, instead of using a BREAK statement, the GOTO statement can be used.
• In the case of exiting a stored procedure if a particular condition is met, instead of using the BREAK statement, the RETURN statement should be used. The RETURN statement exits unconditionally from a query or procedure. RETURN is immediate and complete and can be used at any point to exit from a procedure, batch or statement block.
• When executing a statement block or statement group within a WHILE loop, the groups of statements need to be enclosed within a BEGIN END blocks. Otherwise only the first Transact-SQL statement within that statement block will be part of the WHILE loop. The other Transact-SQL statement will be executed after the condition in the WHILE loop is not met anymore or a BREAK statement has been encountered within the WHILE loop.

DECLARE @Counter  INT
DECLARE @UserID   INT

SET @Counter = 0
SET @UserID = 1
WHILE EXISTS (SELECT * FROM [dbo].[UserTransaction]
              WHERE [UserID] = @UserID)
BEGIN
    DELETE TOP (10) FROM [dbo].[UserTransaction]
    WHERE [UserID] = @UserID

    SET @Counter = Counter + 1

    IF @Counter > 10
        BREAK
END