decimal and numeric (T-SQL)

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 28 unless the server is started with the /p parameter of sqlservr. If the /p parameter is specified, the maximum precision is 38; therefore, 0 < p <=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