Using the Per Mille Symbol
The per mille sign means "per thousand", the same way the percent sign means "per hundred". A figure of 8‰ is eight parts in a thousand, which is 0.8%. The glyph is a percent sign with an extra zero, and that is also how to remember the scale: one more zero, one more decimal place. The Latin name is per mille; English speakers also say "per mil" or "parts per thousand".
Where it is used
- Blood alcohol in most of Europe: the legal driving limit is 0.5‰ in Germany and France and 0.2‰ in Sweden, whereas the US and UK quote the same quantity as a percentage (0.08%).
- Salinity of seawater, about 35‰, meaning 35 grams of salt per kilogram of water.
- Railway and road gradients in continental Europe: a 25‰ climb rises 25 metres per kilometre.
- Isotope ratios in geology and climate science, written δ¹⁸O = −5.2‰.
- Property tax and interest in some countries, where a rate of 2‰ is easier to print than 0.2%.
- Birth and death rates in demographics, quoted per thousand people.
Spacing and typography
Write the number directly followed by the sign with no space in ordinary English text — 35‰ — following the same convention as the percent sign. Scientific publishers that follow the SI brochure put a thin space before both % and ‰, so you will see 35 ‰ in journals. Never write "‰%" or add "per cent" after the sign, and do not mistake ‰ for a fancy percent: a headline that promises "50‰ off" is offering five percent.
Basis points
Finance goes one step further with the per ten thousand sign ‱, better known as a basis point: 1‱ is 0.01%, so a central bank raising rates by 25 basis points is moving them by 0.25%. The glyph adds yet another zero, and it renders in fewer fonts than ‰, which is why financial writing spells out "bp" instead.
Typing it
Windows users press Alt + 0137 on the numeric keypad; Mac users press Option + Shift + R. On an iPhone, hold the % key on the number keyboard and the per mille sign slides out. Android keyboards vary, so a text replacement or a paste from this page is the reliable route. The character is in Windows-1252 and Mac Roman as well as Unicode, so it displays on every device and in plain-text fields.
In bios and captions
The sign is rare on social media, which makes it stand out. People use it as a joke about small odds ("chance of me replying: 1‰"), as a stylised percent in aesthetic layouts alongside the degree symbol, or as a badge in finance and science bios. It also sits well beside the numero sign and other Letterlike marks in a small font footer line.