Edit

Share via

Data type precedence (Transact-SQL)

  • Article

Applies to: SQL Server Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Synapse Analytics Analytics Platform System (PDW) SQL analytics endpoint in Microsoft Fabric Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric SQL database in Microsoft Fabric

When an operator combines expressions of different data types, the data type with the lower precedence is first converted to the data type with the higher precedence. If the conversion isn't a supported implicit conversion, an error is returned. For an operator combining operand expressions having the same data type, the result of the operation has that data type.

SQL Server uses the following precedence order for data types:

  1. user-defined data types (highest)
  2. json
  3. sql_variant
  4. xml
  5. datetimeoffset
  6. datetime2
  7. datetime
  8. smalldatetime
  9. date
  10. time
  11. float
  12. real
  13. decimal
  14. money
  15. smallmoney
  16. bigint
  17. int
  18. smallint
  19. tinyint
  20. bit
  21. ntext
  22. text
  23. image
  24. timestamp
  25. uniqueidentifier
  26. nvarchar, including nvarchar(max)
  27. nchar
  28. varchar, including varchar(max)
  29. char
  30. varbinary, including varbinary(max)
  31. binary (lowest)

Related content