VBA Data Types

VBA can take care of data types automatically, but it does it at a cost of speed and memory. When your application grows, sometimes you will need to explicitly define the best data type for the particular variable.

The following list shows the grammgcdata types you can use in Excel VBA.

Boolean

It holds only one of two logical values: True or False. It is often used in logical statements.

Bytes used	Range	Example
2	True or False	Dim checkVal As Boolean checkVal = True

Byte

You can use this type when you work with small values (e.g. people’s ages).

Bytes used	Range	Example
1	0 to 255	Dim age As Byte Age = 56

Currency

The currency format allows you to store numbers as the decimal fraction that has 15 digits to the left and 4 digits to the right.

Bytes used	Range	Example 1
8	-922,337,203,685,477.5808 to 922,337,203,685,477.5807	Dim money AS Currency money = 123.456789   result: 123.4568
		Example 2
		Dim money Dim value As Double   value = 123.456789 money = CCur(value) MsgBox (money)   description: Ccur function converts a value to the currency.

Date

The date format is useful when you need to perform some kind of operations on dates (e.g. calculate the number of days between two dates). Each date or time need to be placed between two „#” marks.

Bytes used	Range	Example
8	1 January 100 to 31 December 9999	Dim today As Date   Const myDate As Date myDate = #12/1/2014#   Dim myTime As Date myTime = #12:45:12#

Caution

VBA displays your time and date according to your system’s date and time format.

Caution

When you write VBA code you have to remember that you must use the U.S. date formats (e.g. mm/dd/yyyy) even if your system’s time format is set differently.

Decimal

The Dim value as Decimal notation is not correct. You cannot declare a variable to be a Decimal. But you can declare it as Variant first and then use the CDec function to convert it to Decimal.

Bytes used	Range	Example
12	Largest possible value: +/-79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,335 Largest/smallest value with 28 decimal places: +/-7.9228162514264337593543950335 Smallest non-zero value: +/-0.0000000000000000000000000001	Dim value value = 123.456789 value = CDec(value)

Double

The Double (double-precision floating-point) variables are used to store large floating point numbers.

Bytes used	Range	Example
8	-1.79769313486231E+308 to -4.94065645841247E-324	Dim value As Double value = 123.456789

Integer

The Integer is used to store whole numbers. Floating point numbers are rounded to the nearest integer.

Bytes used	Range	Example
2	-32,768 to 32,767	Dim value As Integer value = 3.5 MsgBox(value)   result: 4

Long

If you need to store larger numbers and the Integer type is not enough, try using Long.

Bytes used	Range	Example
4	-2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647	Dim value As Long value = 32800

LongLong

If you need to store even bigger numbers (for example to show the world population), you can use the LongLong format.

Bytes used	Range	Example
8	-2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647	Dim value As LongLong value = 7000000000#

NOTICE

If you enter a number that is larger than Long, VBA will add # mark at the end of the number.

Single

Single (single-precision floating-point) is the smallest data type which you can use to store decimal fractions.

Bytes used	Range	Example
4	-3.402823E+38 to -1.401298E-45	Dim value As Single value = 123.456

String

Use this data type to store text.

Bytes used	Range	Example 1
1 per character	A variable-length string: up to 2 billion characters A fixed-length string: 1 to 65,526 characters	Dim myText As String myText = “Some text”
		Example 2
		Dim myText As String * 6 myText = “Some text” MsgBox(myText)   result: Some t

Variant

The Variant type is assumed if you don’t declare data type explicitly.

Bytes used	Range	Example
may vary	For negative values: -1.797693134862315E308 to -4.94066E-324 For positive values: 4.94066E-324 to 1.797693134862315E308	Dim myVar1 As Variant myVar = 123.456   Dim myVar2 myVar2 = “This is simple text”