What data type to use for money in Java?

Java has Currency class that represents the ISO 4217 currency codes. BigDecimal is the best type for representing currency decimal values.

Joda Money has provided a library to represent money.

You can use Money and Currency API (JSR 354). You can use this API in, provided you add appropriate dependencies to your project.

For Java 8, add the following reference implementation as a dependency to your pom.xml:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.javamoney</groupId>
    <artifactId>moneta</artifactId>
    <version>1.0</version>
</dependency>

This dependency will transitively add javax.money:money-api as a dependency.

You can then use the API:

package com.example.money;

import static org.junit.Assert.assertThat;
import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.is;

import java.util.Locale;

import javax.money.Monetary;
import javax.money.MonetaryAmount;
import javax.money.MonetaryRounding;
import javax.money.format.MonetaryAmountFormat;
import javax.money.format.MonetaryFormats;

import org.junit.Test;

public class MoneyTest {

    @Test
    public void testMoneyApi() {
        MonetaryAmount eurAmount1 = Monetary.getDefaultAmountFactory().setNumber(1.1111).setCurrency("EUR").create();
        MonetaryAmount eurAmount2 = Monetary.getDefaultAmountFactory().setNumber(1.1141).setCurrency("EUR").create();

        MonetaryAmount eurAmount3 = eurAmount1.add(eurAmount2);
        assertThat(eurAmount3.toString(), is("EUR 2.2252"));

        MonetaryRounding defaultRounding = Monetary.getDefaultRounding();
        MonetaryAmount eurAmount4 = eurAmount3.with(defaultRounding);
        assertThat(eurAmount4.toString(), is("EUR 2.23"));

        MonetaryAmountFormat germanFormat = MonetaryFormats.getAmountFormat(Locale.GERMAN);
        assertThat(germanFormat.format(eurAmount4), is("EUR 2,23") );
    }
}