Data Type Conversion Chart

Implicit conversions are those conversions that occur without specifying either the CAST or CONVERT function.
Explicit conversions are those conversions that require the CAST or CONVERT function to be specified.
The following illustration shows all explicit and implicit data type conversions that are allowed for
SQL Server system-supplied data types.

To:

uniqueidentifier
datetimeoffset
smalldatetime

smallint(INT2)
tinyint(INT1)

smallmoney

hierarchyid
sql_variant
timestamp
datetime2
varbinary

datetime

int(INT4)
nvarchar

CLR UDT
numeric
decimal
varchar

money
binary

image
bigint
nchar

ntext
float
time
date
char

text
real

xml
bit
From:
binary
varbinary
char
varchar
nchar
nvarchar
datetime
smalldatetime
date
time
datetimeoffset
datetime2
decimal
numeric
float
real
bigint
int(INT4)
smallint(INT2)
tinyint(INT1)
money
smallmoney
bit
timestamp
uniqueidentifier
image
ntext
text
sql_variant
xml
CLR UDT
hierarchyid

Key:

Explicit conversion
Implicit conversion
Conversion not allowed
Requires explicit CAST to prevent the loss of precision or scale that might occur in an implicit conversion.
Implicit conversions between xml data types are supported only if the source or target is untyped xml. Otherwise, the conversion must be explicit.

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