Resolve the “Entity Framework tools version '3.1.9' is older than that of the runtime '5.0.0' in Visual Studio Package Manager”

.NET 5 is released recently and you can use entity framework core 5 with your projects by setting up the version 5.0.0 of the packages, Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore, Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design, Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer, Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools if you are using SQL server as the database. However, when you execute dotnet ef commands in the package manager console in Visual Studio you might see the message “Entity Framework tools version '3.1.9' is older than that of the runtime '5.0.0' in Visual Studio Package Manager”. Let’s see how we can get it fixed.

The Problem

The Entity Framework tools version '3.1.9' is older than that of the runtime '5.0.0'. Update the tools for the latest features and bug fixes.

The Solution

Open up the developer command prompt for Visual Studio and execute the below command to update the dotnet ef tools globally to version 5.0.0.

dotnet tool update --global dotnet-ef --version 5.0.0

Once the tool update done package manager does not report that message anymore and commands are getting executed with the version 5.0.0 of the entity framework core tools.