Bloody hell... I looked this up as I was certain it couldn&#x27;t still be the case. But yes, it is!<p>This was logged as an issue on Connect in 2008, [1] and Microsoft&#x27;s response was:<p>&quot;Thanks for your suggestion. We are considering adding support for UTF8 in the next version of SQL Server. It is not clear at this point if it will be a new type or integrate it with existing types. We understand the pain in terms of integrating with UTF8 data and we are looking at ways to effectively resolve it.&quot;<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;connect.microsoft.com&#x2F;SQLServer&#x2F;feedback&#x2F;details&#x2F;362867&#x2F;add-support-for-storing-utf-8-natively-in-sql-server" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;connect.microsoft.com&#x2F;SQLServer&#x2F;feedback&#x2F;details&#x2F;362...</a>