PERCENTILE_DISC()

PERCENTILE_DISC computes a specific percentile for sorted values in an entire rowset or within a rowset's distinct partitions.

Signature

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

Parameters

  • literal — The percentile to compute. The value must range between 0.0 and 1.0.

Examples

SELECT DISTINCT PERCENTILE_DISC(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY amount) OVER () AS median FROM dbo.orders;
median
------------
       49.50

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.