diff --git a/doc/environment.md b/doc/environment.md
index 7aa2c55..d279f1b 100644
--- a/doc/environment.md
+++ b/doc/environment.md
@@ -26,4 +26,5 @@
 | DATABASE_TABLE_PREFIX | *empty* | prefix all tables if used within same database as other applications. |
 | DATABASE_LOGGING | `false` | if `true` all db interactions will be logged to stdout |
 | DATABASE_MIGRATE | `true` | can be used in load balanced environments to only allow one container to perform migrations / manually execute migrations
+| DATABASE_SSL | `false` | if `true` will require ssl database connection |
 
diff --git a/src/app.imports.ts b/src/app.imports.ts
index 429a100..a928fc5 100644
--- a/src/app.imports.ts
+++ b/src/app.imports.ts
@@ -110,6 +110,7 @@ export const imports = [
         synchronize: false,
         type: configService.get<string>('DATABASE_DRIVER', 'sqlite') as any,
         url: configService.get<string>('DATABASE_URL', 'sqlite://data.sqlite'),
+        ssl: configService.get<string>('DATABASE_SSL', 'false') === 'true',
         entityPrefix: configService.get<string>('DATABASE_TABLE_PREFIX', ''),
         logging: configService.get<string>('DATABASE_LOGGING', 'false') === 'true',
         entities,