diff --git a/pkgs/development/tools/database/pgcli/default.nix b/pkgs/development/python-modules/pgcli/default.nix
similarity index 87%
rename from pkgs/development/tools/database/pgcli/default.nix
rename to pkgs/development/python-modules/pgcli/default.nix
index 40c204812887..70e52493315e 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/tools/database/pgcli/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/python-modules/pgcli/default.nix
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 { lib, stdenv
-, buildPythonApplication
+, buildPythonPackage
 , fetchPypi
 , isPy3k
 , cli-helpers
@@ -18,7 +18,9 @@
 , mock
 }:
 
-buildPythonApplication rec {
+# this is a pythonPackage because of the ipython line magics in pgcli.magic
+# integrating with ipython-sql
+buildPythonPackage rec {
   pname = "pgcli";
   version = "3.4.1";
 
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index f1209d6c9058..b8d1c9be9b2b 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -16057,7 +16057,7 @@ with pkgs;
 
   peg = callPackage ../development/tools/parsing/peg { };
 
-  pgcli = pkgs.python3Packages.pgcli;
+  pgcli = with pkgs.python3Packages; toPythonApplication pgcli;
 
   picotool = callPackage ../development/tools/picotool { };
 
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix
index 04d1aa59ccef..d36ba09b628a 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix
@@ -6423,7 +6423,7 @@ in {
 
   pg8000 = callPackage ../development/python-modules/pg8000 { };
 
-  pgcli = callPackage ../development/tools/database/pgcli { };
+  pgcli = callPackage ../development/python-modules/pgcli { };
 
   pglast = callPackage ../development/python-modules/pglast { };