UNICODE()

Returns the integer value, as defined by the Unicode standard, for the first character of the input expression.

Signature

UNICODE ( 'ncharacter_expression' )

Examples

SELECT UNICODE(N'鍵') AS codepoint;

codepoint
-----------
      37749

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.