question

Why do you want to change the datatype from Money to something else?

As long as you are converting it to a compatible data type, you can simply change the data type in place.

See:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/tables/modify-columns-database-engine?view=sql-server-ver15

The simplest way is to say

ALTER TABLE tbl ALTER COLUMN moneycol decimal(20,2) NOT NULL

The caveat is that this is an order-of-data operation so the table has to be rebuilt. If this is a 500 GB table that can be painful, and in that case, you may have to look for options.

Also, you will need to make a decision on data types. Above I only typed what came into my mind. Since money supports four decimals, you could lose some data if you go by my suggestion.

Hi BobbyP-1695,

You can try to convert money data type to decimal(19,4).
And you can try to add a new column, copy existing data to that column, rename the old column, and change the data type. In case something goes wrong, you can switch the old column back.
Please refer to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/224462/storing-money-in-a-decimal-column-what-precision-and-scale which might be helpful.

Best Regards,
Amelia

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