PERCENTILE_CONT()

PERCENTILE_CONT calculates a percentile based on a continuous distribution of the column value.

Signature

PERCENTILE_CONT ( numeric_literal )
    WITHIN GROUP ( ORDER BY order_by_expression [ ASC | DESC ] )
    OVER ( [ <partition_by_clause> ] )

Parameters

numeric_literal — The percentile to compute. The value must range between `0.0` and `1.0`.

Examples

SELECT DISTINCT PERCENTILE_CONT(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY amount) OVER () AS median FROM dbo.orders;

median
------------------------
                   74.25

Run against SQL Server 16.0.4265.3 on 2026-09-13. This is the output we got, not the documentation’s.

Available on

SQL Server 2017 and later
Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Managed Instance
Azure Synapse Analytics
Analytics Platform System (PDW)
Microsoft Fabric warehouse
Fabric SQL database

Signature and description adapted from the Microsoft SQL documentation, used under the CC BY 4.0. SQL Server and Azure are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. This page is not affiliated with Microsoft.