Transact-SQL Reference

decimal and numeric

Numeric data types with fixed precision and scale.

decimal[(p[, s])] and numeric[(p[, s])]

Fixed precision and scale numbers. When maximum precision is used, valid values are from - 10^38 +1 through 10^38 - 1. The SQL-92 synonyms for decimal are dec and dec(p, s).

p (precision)

Specifies the maximum total number of decimal digits that can be stored, both to the left and to the right of the decimal point. The precision must be a value from 1 through the maximum precision. The maximum precision is 38.

s (scale)

Specifies the maximum number of decimal digits that can be stored to the right of the decimal point. Scale must be a value from 0 through p. The default scale is 0; therefore, 0 <= s <= p. Maximum storage sizes vary, based on the precision.

Precision Storage bytes
1 - 9 5
10-19 9
20-28 13
29-38 17

See Also

ALTER TABLE

CAST and CONVERT

CREATE TABLE

Data Type Conversion

Data Types

DECLARE @local_variable

DELETE

INSERT

SET @local_variable

Using Startup Options

UPDATE