Per mille sign (‰) in HTML
The per mille sign means parts per thousand, one order of magnitude finer than a percent. Its named reference is ‰ and its code point is U+2030.
At a glance
- Character
- ‰
- Named entity
- ‰
- Decimal reference
- ‰
- Hex reference
- ‰
- Unicode code point
- U+2030
- Unicode name
- PER MILLE SIGN
- In the entity reference
- Math
In detail
The glyph is a percent sign with a second zero added to the denominator, which is a useful mnemonic: one more zero means one more factor of ten in the divisor. Ten per mille is one percent, and a value quoted in per mille is always ten times the numeric value of the same quantity in percent.
It is the natural unit wherever percent would leave you writing leading zeros. Blood alcohol limits in most of Europe are expressed this way, as are seawater salinity, some tax and levy rates, and slope gradients in rail engineering. In each case the quantity sits naturally in the range of one to a few tens of parts per thousand, and percent would force a decimal.
Finance goes one step further with the per ten thousand sign at U+2031, sometimes called the basis point sign. One basis point is one hundredth of a percent, and the character exists, but the convention in practice is to write bps in letters because the glyph is unfamiliar and font support is patchy. It is not in the entity reference tool's list.
Spacing follows the same rule as the percent sign in whatever style guide you are using, and the two should be consistent on a page. The international standards recommend a space between the number and the sign; most English language publishing sets it tight. Whichever you pick, do not vary it between percent and per mille in the same document, because the difference reads as an error.
Examples
<p>The legal limit is 0.5‰ blood alcohol.</p>
<p>Average salinity is about 35‰.</p>const perMille = 35;
const percent = perMille / 10; // 3.5
const basisPoints = perMille * 10; // 350Things that catch people out
- Reading the sign as percent understates a figure by a factor of ten, which in a legal limit or a levy rate is a serious error rather than a rounding issue.
- The per ten thousand sign at U+2031 has no named entity and poor font coverage. Write bps unless you have checked the glyph renders in your stack.
- At small sizes the extra zero is easy to miss. Give the character enough size in tables that a reader can tell the two signs apart.
Try it: HTML Entity Reference
Search 152 entities across 9 categories, switch the copy format between the character, the name, the decimal form and the hex form, and copy in one click.
HTML Entity Reference
LOCAL · Browser-OnlySearchable reference of 150+ HTML entities with one-click copy in any format
152 entities across 9 categories
Commonly Used
→Arrows(13)
±Math(35)
$Currency(8)
…Punctuation(21)
©Symbols(24)
πGreek(30)
½Fractions(6)
●Geometric(7)
æLatin Special(8)
Click any entity card to copy it in your chosen format. All data is embedded in the page and works offline.
Related HTML entities
All html entities →Degree sign (°) in HTML
The degree sign at U+00B0, its entity forms, the spacing rule that differs between temperatures and angles, and the three characters it gets confused with.
Fraction characters: one half, one quarter, three quarters
The vulgar fraction characters at U+00BC, U+00BD and U+00BE, their entity forms, the wider fraction block, and when a fraction slash is the better answer.
Approximately equal to (≈) in HTML
The almost equal to sign at U+2248 with its entity forms, and how it differs from the congruent, asymptotic and identical to signs it is confused with.
Square root symbol (√) in HTML
The radical sign at U+221A, its entity forms, why it has no overbar, when parentheses are compulsory, and the cube and fourth root characters.
Superscript one, two and three in HTML
The superscript digit characters at U+00B9, U+00B2 and U+00B3, their entity forms, the rest of the superscript block, and when the sup element is better.
Mathematical operator entities: sets, logic and calculus
Named entities for summation, integral, partial differential, set membership, union, intersection and the logical connectives, with their code points.
Tools for this
- HTML Entity Reference Free online HTML entity reference - search and copy HTML entities with live preview
- HTML Entity Encoder Free online HTML entity encoder - encode or decode HTML entities to prevent XSS and display issues