datetime2 (Transact-SQL)

Defines a date that is combined with a time of day that is based on 24-hour clock. datetime2 can be considered as an extension of the existing datetime type that has a larger date range, a larger default fractional precision, and optional user-specified precision.

datetime2 Description

Property

Value

Syntax

datetime2 [ (fractional seconds precision) ]

Usage

DECLARE @MyDatetime2 datetime2(7)

CREATE TABLE Table1 ( Column1 datetime2(7) )

Default string literal format

(used for down-level client)

YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss[.fractional seconds]

For more information, see the "Backward Compatibility for Down-level Clients" section that follows.

Date range

0001-01-01 through 9999-12-31

January 1,1 AD through December 31, 9999 AD

Time range

00:00:00 through 23:59:59.9999999

Time zone offset range

None

Element ranges

YYYY is a four-digit number, ranging from 0001 through 9999, that represents a year.

MM is a two-digit number, ranging from 01 to 12, that represents a month in the specified year.

DD is a two-digit number, ranging from 01 to 31 depending on the month, that represents a day of the specified month.

hh is a two-digit number, ranging from 00 to 23, that represents the hour.

mm is a two-digit number, ranging from 00 to 59, that represents the minute.

ss is a two-digit number, ranging from 00 to 59, that represents the second.

n* is a zero- to seven-digit number from 0 to 9999999 that represents the fractional seconds.

Character length

19 positions minimum (YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss ) to 27 maximum (YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss.0000000)

Precision, scale

0 to 7 digits, with an accuracy of 100ns. The default precision is 7 digits.

Storage size

6 bytes for precisions less than 3; 7 bytes for precisions 3 and 4. All other precisions require 8 bytes.

Accuracy

100 nanoseconds

Default value

1900-01-01 00:00:00

Calendar

Gregorian

User-defined fractional second precision

Yes

Time zone offset aware and preservation

No

Daylight saving aware

No

For data type metadata, see sys.systypes (Transact-SQL) or TYPEPROPERTY (Transact-SQL). Precision and scale are variable for some date and time data types. To obtain the precision and scale for a column, see COLUMNPROPERTY (Transact-SQL), COL_LENGTH (Transact-SQL), or sys.columns (Transact-SQL).

Supported String Literal Formats for datetime2

The following tables list the supported ISO 8601 and ODBC string literal formats for datetime2. For information about alphabetical, numeric, unseparated, and time formats for the date and time parts of datetime2, see date (Transact-SQL) and time (Transact-SQL).

ISO 8601

Descriptions

YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss[.nnnnnnn]

YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss[.nnnnnnn]

This format is not affected by the SET LANGUAGE and SET DATEFORMAT session locale settings. The T, the colons (:) and the period (.) are included in the string literal, for example '2007-05-02T19:58:47.1234567'.

ODBC

Description

{ ts 'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss[.fractional seconds]' }

ODBC API specific:

  • The number of digits to the right of the decimal point, which represents the fractional seconds, can be specified from 0 up to 7 (100 nanoseconds).

  • In SQL Server 2012, with compatibility level set to 10, the literal will internally map to the new time type.

ANSI and ISO 8601 Compliance

The ANSI and ISO 8601 compliance of date and time apply to datetime2.

Backward Compatibility for Down-level Clients

Some down-level clients do not support the time, date, datetime2 and datetimeoffset data types. The following table shows the type mapping between an up-level instance of SQL Server and down-level clients.

SQL Server 2012 data type

Default string literal format passed to down-level client

Down-level ODBC

Down-level OLEDB

Down-level JDBC

Down-level SQLCLIENT

time

hh:mm:ss[.nnnnnnn]

SQL_WVARCHAR or SQL_VARCHAR

DBTYPE_WSTRor DBTYPE_STR

Java.sql.String

String or SqString

date

YYYY-MM-DD

SQL_WVARCHAR or SQL_VARCHAR

DBTYPE_WSTRor DBTYPE_STR

Java.sql.String

String or SqString

datetime2

YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss[.nnnnnnn]

SQL_WVARCHAR or SQL_VARCHAR

DBTYPE_WSTRor DBTYPE_STR

Java.sql.String

String or SqString

datetimeoffset

YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss[.nnnnnnn] [+|-]hh:mm

SQL_WVARCHAR or SQL_VARCHAR

DBTYPE_WSTRor DBTYPE_STR

Java.sql.String

String or SqString

Converting Date and Time Data

When you convert to date and time data types, SQL Server rejects all values it cannot recognize as dates or times. For information about using the CAST and CONVERT functions with date and time data, see CAST and CONVERT (Transact-SQL)

Converting datetime2 Data Type to Other Date and Time Types

The following table describes what occurs when a datetime2 data type is converted to other date and time data types.

Data type to convert to

Conversion details

date

The year, month, and day are copied.

The following code shows the results of converting a datetime2(4) value to a date value.

DECLARE @datetime2 datetime2(4) = '12-10-25 12:32:10.1234';
DECLARE @date date = @datetime2;
SELECT @datetime2 AS '@datetime2', @date AS 'date';
--Result
--@datetime2               date
-------------------------- ----------
--2025-12-10 12:32:10.1234 2025-12-10
--
--(1 row(s) affected)

time(n)

The hour, minute, second, and fractional seconds are copied if the scale is the same and rounded up if the scale is different.

The following code shows the results of converting a datetime2(4) value to a time(3) value.

DECLARE @datetime2 datetime2(4) = '12-10-25 12:32:10.1237';
DECLARE @time time(3) = @datetime2;
SELECT @datetime2 AS '@datetime2', @time AS 'time(3)';
--Result
--@datetime2                time(3) 
-------------------------- ------------
--2025-12-10 12:32:10.1234 12:32:10.124
--
--(1 row(s) affected)

datetime

The date and time values are copied. When the fractional precision of the datetime(n) value is greater than three digits, the value is truncated.

The following code shows the results of converting a datetime2 value to a datetime value.

DECLARE @datetime2 datetime2 = '12-10-25 12:32:10.1234567'
DECLARE @datetime datetime = @datetime2;
SELECT @datetime2 AS '@datetime2', @datetime AS '@datetime';
--Result
--@datetime2                  @datetime
----------------------------- -----------------------
@datetime2             @datetime
---------------------- -----------------------
2025-12-10 12:32:10.12 2025-12-10 12:32:10.123
--
--(1 row(s) affected)

smalldatetime

The date and hours are copied. The minutes are rounded up with respect to the seconds and the seconds are set to 0.

The following code shows the results of converting a datetime2 value to a smalldatetime value.

DECLARE @datetime2 datetime2 = '12-10-25 12:32:30.9234567';
DECLARE @smalldatetime smalldatetime = @datetime2;
SELECT @datetime2 AS '@datetime2', @smalldatetime AS '@smalldatetime';
--Result
@datetime2             @smalldatetime
---------------------- -----------------------
2025-12-10 12:32:30.92 2025-12-10 12:33:00
(1 row(s) affected)

datetimeoffset(n)

The datetime2(n) value is copied to the datetimeoffset(n) value. The time zone offset is set to +00:0. When the precision of the datetime2(n) value is greater than the precision of datetimeoffset(n) value, the value is rounded up to fit.

The following code shows the results of converting a datetime2(5) value to a datetimeoffset(3) value.

D DECLARE @datetime2 datetime2(3) = '12-10-25 12:32:10.12999';
DECLARE @datetimeoffset datetimeoffset(2) = @datetime2;
SELECT @datetime2 AS '@datetime2', @datetimeoffset AS '@datetimeoffset(2)';
--Result
--@datetime2              @datetimeoffset(2)
------------------------- -----------------------------
2025-12-10 12:32:10.13           2025-12-10 12:32:10.13 +00:00
--
--(1 row(s) affected)

Converting String Literals to datetime2

Conversions from string literals to date and time types are permitted if all parts of the strings are in valid formats. Otherwise, a runtime error is raised. Implicit conversions or explicit conversions that do not specify a style, from date and time types to string literals will be in the default format of the current session. The following table shows the rules for converting a string literal to the datetime2 data type.

Input string literal

datetime2(n)

ODBC DATE

ODBC string literals are mapped to the datetime data type. Any assignment operation from ODBC DATETIME literals into datetime2 types will cause an implicit conversion between datetime and this type as defined by the conversion rules.

ODBC TIME

See previous ODBC DATE rule.

ODBC DATETIME

See previous ODBC DATE rule.

DATE only

The TIME part defaults to 00:00:00.

TIME only

The DATE part defaults to 1900-1-1.

TIMEZONE only

Default values are supplied.

DATE + TIME

Trivial

DATE + TIMEZONE

Not allowed.

TIME + TIMEZONE

The DATE part defaults to 1900-1-1. TIMEZONE input is ignored.

DATE + TIME + TIMEZONE

The local DATETIME will be used.

Examples

The following example compares the results of casting a string to each date and time data type.

SELECT 
     CAST('2007-05-08 12:35:29. 1234567 +12:15' AS time(7)) AS 'time' 
    ,CAST('2007-05-08 12:35:29. 1234567 +12:15' AS date) AS 'date' 
    ,CAST('2007-05-08 12:35:29.123' AS smalldatetime) AS 
        'smalldatetime' 
    ,CAST('2007-05-08 12:35:29.123' AS datetime) AS 'datetime' 
    ,CAST('2007-05-08 12:35:29. 1234567 +12:15' AS datetime2(7)) AS 
        'datetime2'
    ,CAST('2007-05-08 12:35:29.1234567 +12:15' AS datetimeoffset(7)) AS 
        'datetimeoffset';

Here is the result set.

Data type

Output

time

12:35:29. 1234567

date

2007-05-08

smalldatetime

2007-05-08 12:35:00

datetime

2007-05-08 12:35:29.123

datetime2

2007-05-08 12:35:29. 1234567

datetimeoffset

2007-05-08 12:35:29.1234567 +12:15

See Also

Reference

CAST and CONVERT (Transact-SQL)