Change datatype when importing Excel file into Access

There are a couple of ways to do this. The most straightforward way is to convert the .xls file to a .csv file in Excel, so you can import into Access using the Import Text Wizard, which allows you to choose the data types of every column during the import.

The other benefit to doing this is that the import of a csv (or text) file is so much faster than the import of an xls file. If you're going to do this import more than once, save the import setup settings as an import specification. (When in the Import Text Wizard, click on the "Advanced..." button on the bottom left, then click on "Save As" and give a specification name to save the changes you just made.)

This may be caused by Excel Jet driver default settings. Check out the following registry key and change it's value from default 8 to 0, meaning "guess column data type based on all values, not just first 8 rows."

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Excel]
"TypeGuessRows"=dword:00000000

Please, tell if this works.