What is the best data type to use for money in C#?

What is the best data type to use for money in C#?

Decimal. If you choose double you're leaving yourself open to rounding errors

decimal has a smaller range, but greater precision - so you don't lose all those pennies over time!

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Create your own class. This seems odd, but a .Net type is inadequate to cover different currencies.

Agree with the Money pattern: Handling currencies is just too cumbersome when you use decimals.

If you create a Currency-class, you can then put all the logic relating to money there, including a correct ToString()-method, more control of parsing values and better control of divisions.

Also, with a Currency class, there is no chance of unintentionally mixing money up with other data.

Another option (especially if you're rolling you own class) is to use an int or a int64, and designate the lower four digits (or possibly even 2) as "right of the decimal point". So "on the edges" you'll need some "* 10000" on the way in and some "/ 10000" on the way out. This is the storage mechanism used by Microsoft's SQL Server, see

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The nicity of this is that all your summation can be done using (fast) integer arithmetic.