diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/datatype.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/datatype.sgml
index 58e46b58701..91dc35dc9d2 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/datatype.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/datatype.sgml
@@ -568,7 +568,7 @@ NUMERIC
      type is more akin to <type>varchar(<replaceable>n</>)</type>
      than to <type>char(<replaceable>n</>)</type>.)  The actual storage
      requirement is two bytes for each group of four decimal digits,
-     plus five to eight bytes overhead.
+     plus three to eight bytes overhead.
     </para>
 
     <indexterm>