SQL Server Error 468

Error number

468

Severity

16 (user-correctable error)

State

9

Product

Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine

Versions

All supported SQL Server versions (2016 to 2025), Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance

Category

Data Type & Conversion

Last reviewed

23 October 2026

What it means

Error 468 means a comparison, join or UNION combines two text columns with different collations, and SQL Server cannot decide which collation's sorting and comparison rules to use.

Every char, varchar, nchar, nvarchar and text column has a collation, which decides how text is sorted and compared (case, accents, code page). When two column values meet in =, <, IN, a JOIN condition or a UNION, both sides must use one collation. A literal or variable simply adopts the column's collation, but two columns with different explicit collations have equal rank, so neither wins and the statement fails at compile time with 468 at severity 16.

The message names both collations and the operation, for example equal to or UNION. The order of the two names does not tell you which side of your query is which; check the column collations with the diagnostic query. The most frequent real-world case is a temporary table: temp tables take the collation of tempdb (the server collation), so in a database with a different collation, joining a temp table to a permanent table conflicts.

Common causes

• A join between tables from two databases, or two vendors' schemas, created with different collations.
• A temporary table or table variable compared with a permanent table in a database whose collation differs from the server (tempdb) collation.
• A column created or altered with an explicit COLLATE clause that differs from the rest of the database.
• A database restored or attached from another server that uses a different default collation.
• A UNION, INTERSECT or EXCEPT that combines text columns with different collations.

Diagnose it

Read-only These queries only read metadata and dynamic management views. They do not change data, permissions or configuration, so they are safe to run first.

SELECT OBJECT_NAME(c.object_id) AS table_name, c.name AS column_name, c.collation_name
FROM sys.columns AS c
WHERE c.object_id IN (OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.Customers'), OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.Imports'))
  AND c.collation_name IS NOT NULL
ORDER BY table_name, c.column_id;

SELECT CAST(SERVERPROPERTY('Collation') AS sysname)             AS server_collation,
       CAST(DATABASEPROPERTYEX('tempdb', 'Collation') AS sysname) AS tempdb_collation,
       CAST(DATABASEPROPERTYEX(DB_NAME(), 'Collation') AS sysname) AS this_database;

SELECT OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(c.object_id) + '.' + OBJECT_NAME(c.object_id) AS table_name,
       c.name AS column_name, c.collation_name
FROM sys.columns AS c
JOIN sys.tables AS t ON t.object_id = c.object_id
WHERE c.collation_name IS NOT NULL
  AND c.collation_name <> CAST(DATABASEPROPERTYEX(DB_NAME(), 'Collation') AS sysname)
ORDER BY table_name, column_name;

How to fix it

Each fix is labelled with what it changes. Try read-only checks and the least invasive fix first, and test changes outside production.

SELECT c.name
FROM dbo.Customers AS c
JOIN dbo.Imports AS i
  ON i.code = c.code COLLATE Latin1_General_CI_AS;

CREATE TABLE #Codes (
    code VARCHAR(10) COLLATE DATABASE_DEFAULT
);

ALTER TABLE dbo.Imports
ALTER COLUMN code VARCHAR(10) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL;

Examples

Joining two columns with different collations

CREATE TABLE dbo.Customers (code VARCHAR(10) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS, name VARCHAR(50));
CREATE TABLE dbo.Imports   (code VARCHAR(10) COLLATE Latin1_General_CI_AS, name VARCHAR(50));
GO
SELECT c.name
FROM dbo.Customers AS c
JOIN dbo.Imports AS i ON i.code = c.code;

Msg 468, Level 16, State 9, Line 3
Cannot resolve the collation conflict between "SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS" and "Latin1_General_CI_AS" in the equal to operation.

A temp table in a database with a different collation from tempdb

Run in a database created with COLLATE Latin1_General_CI_AS on an instance whose server (and so tempdb) collation is SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. On your server the names in the message are your database and tempdb collations.

-- Database collation: Latin1_General_CI_AS; tempdb: SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
CREATE TABLE dbo.Customers (code VARCHAR(10), name VARCHAR(50));   -- database collation
CREATE TABLE #Codes (code VARCHAR(10));                            -- tempdb collation

SELECT c.name
FROM dbo.Customers AS c
JOIN #Codes AS t ON t.code = c.code;

Msg 468, Level 16, State 9, Line 5
Cannot resolve the collation conflict between "Latin1_General_CI_AS" and "SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS" in the equal to operation.

A UNION of columns with different collations

CREATE TABLE dbo.Customers (code VARCHAR(10) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS);
CREATE TABLE dbo.Imports   (code VARCHAR(10) COLLATE Latin1_General_CI_AS);
GO
SELECT code FROM dbo.Customers
UNION
SELECT code FROM dbo.Imports;

Msg 468, Level 16, State 9, Line 1
Cannot resolve the collation conflict between "Latin1_General_CI_AS" and "SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS" in the UNION operation.

How to prevent it

Pick one collation for the server and its databases and keep to it; do not add COLLATE clauses to individual columns without a clear reason such as a case-sensitive code. In code that creates temp tables, write COLLATE DATABASE_DEFAULT on every text column so it works in any database.

Check the collation before restoring or migrating a database to a different server, and test cross-database joins after the move. For joins in general, see the SQL joins guide.

Common questions

Learn more on CodeWithSQL

• SQL joins guide
• SQL data types explained
• SQL joins lesson

Official documentation

• COLLATE (Transact-SQL)
• Collation precedence (Transact-SQL)
• Collation and Unicode support (Microsoft Learn)
• Database Engine events and errors 0 to 999

Last technically reviewed 23 October 2026; examples and diagnostics run on SQL Server 2025 (17.0.1145.4). Message text checked against the engine's sys.messages catalogue.