diff --git a/src/database/common.c b/src/database/common.c
index 47e5628f..e7c075ca 100644
--- a/src/database/common.c
+++ b/src/database/common.c
@@ -228,11 +228,6 @@ static bool db_create(void)
 	// Close database handle
 	dbclose(&db);
 
-	// Explicitly set permissions to 0644
-	// 644 =            u+w       u+r       g+r       o+r
-	const mode_t mode = S_IWUSR | S_IRUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IROTH;
-	chmod_file(FTLfiles.FTL_db, mode);
-
 	return true;
 }
 
@@ -277,6 +272,11 @@ void db_init(void)
 		}
 	}
 
+	// Explicitly set permissions to 0664
+	// 664 =            u+w       u+r       g+w       g+r       o+r
+	const mode_t mode = S_IWUSR | S_IRUSR | S_IWGRP | S_IRGRP | S_IROTH;
+	chmod_file(FTLfiles.FTL_db, mode);
+
 	// Open database
 	sqlite3 *db = dbopen(false);
 
diff --git a/test/test_suite.bats b/test/test_suite.bats
index 25463368..d446e757 100644
--- a/test/test_suite.bats
+++ b/test/test_suite.bats
@@ -535,7 +535,7 @@
   printf "%s\n" "${lines[@]}"
   # Depending on the shell (x86_64-musl is built on busybox) there can be one or multiple spaces between user and group
   [[ ${lines[0]} == *"pihole"?*"pihole"* ]]
-  [[ ${lines[0]} == "-rw-r--r--"* ]]
+  [[ ${lines[0]} == "-rw-rw-r--"* ]]
   run bash -c 'file /etc/pihole/pihole-FTL.db'
   printf "%s\n" "${lines[@]}"
   [[ ${lines[0]} == "/etc/pihole/pihole-FTL.db: SQLite 3.x database"* ]]
@@ -1034,7 +1034,7 @@
   run bash -c 'ls -l /etc/pihole/pihole-FTL.db'
   printf "%s\n" "${lines[@]}"
   [[ ${lines[0]} == *"pihole pihole"* || ${lines[0]} == *"pihole   pihole"* ]]
-  [[ ${lines[0]} == "-rw-r--r--"* ]]
+  [[ ${lines[0]} == "-rw-rw-r--"* ]]
 }
 
 # "ldd" prints library dependencies and the used interpreter for a given program