SQL - Data Types

SQL Data Type is an attribute that specifies the type of data of any object. Each column, variable
and expression has a related data type in SQL. You can use these data types while creating your
tables. You can choose a data type for a table column based on your requirement.
SQL Server offers six categories of data types for your use which are listed below −

Exact Numeric Data Types

DATA TYPE FROM TO

bigint -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 9,223,372,036,854,775,807

int -2,147,483,648 2,147,483,647

smallint -32,768 32,767

tinyint 0 255

bit 0 1

decimal -10^38 +1 10^38 -1

numeric -10^38 +1 10^38 -1

money -922,337,203,685,477.5808 +922,337,203,685,477.5807

smallmoney -214,748.3648 +214,748.3647

Approximate Numeric Data Types

DATA TYPE FROM TO

float -1.79E + 308 1.79E + 308

real -3.40E + 38 3.40E + 38

Date and Time Data Types

DATA TYPE FROM TO

smalldatetime Jan 1, 1900 Jun 6, 2079

date Stores a date like June 30, 1991

time Stores a time of day like 12:30 P.M.

Note − Here, datetime has 3.33 milliseconds accuracy where as smalldatetime has 1 minute
accuracy.

Character Strings Data Types

Sr.No. DATA TYPE & Description

char
1
Maximum length of 8,000 characters.( Fixed length non-Unicode characters)

varchar
2
Maximum of 8,000 characters.(Variable-length non-Unicode data).

varchar(max)
3 Maximum length of 2E + 31 characters, Variable-length non-Unicode data (SQL Server
2005 only).

text
4
Variable-length non-Unicode data with a maximum length of 2,147,483,647 characters.

Unicode Character Strings Data Types

Sr.No. DATA TYPE & Description

nchar
1
Maximum length of 4,000 characters.( Fixed length Unicode)

2
nvarchar
 Maximum length of 4,000 characters.(Variable length Unicode)

nvarchar(max)
3 Maximum length of 2E + 31 characters (SQL Server 2005 only).( Variable length
Unicode)

ntext
4
Maximum length of 1,073,741,823 characters. ( Variable length Unicode )

Binary Data Types

Sr.No. DATA TYPE & Description

binary
1
Maximum length of 8,000 bytes(Fixed-length binary data )

varbinary
2
Maximum length of 8,000 bytes.(Variable length binary data)

varbinary(max)
3
Maximum length of 2E + 31 bytes (SQL Server 2005 only). ( Variable length Binary data)

image
4
Maximum length of 2,147,483,647 bytes. ( Variable length Binary Data)

Misc Data Types

Sr.No. DATA TYPE & Description

sql_variant
1 Stores values of various SQL Server-supported data types, except text, ntext, and
timestamp.
 timestamp
2
Stores a database-wide unique number that gets updated every time a row gets updated

uniqueidentifier
3
Stores a globally unique identifier (GUID)

xml
4 Stores XML data. You can store xml instances in a column or a variable (SQL Server
2005 only).

cursor
5
Reference to a cursor object

table
6
Stores a result set for later processing