VARCHAR is variable-length. Used to store variable length alphanumeric data. The maximum this data type can hold is up to It's slower than CHAR. Uses dynamic memory allocation. You can create index on varchar column whereas, it not possible in case of varchar(max).varchar can store values from 1 to 8000 which is not the case with varchar(max). It can go up to 2147483647 chars.CHAR is fixed length.Used to store character string value of fixed length. The maximum no. of characters the data type can hold is 255 characters. It's 50% faster than VARCHAR. Uses static memory allocation.