Daily Archives: 19th August

Percent, permil and basis points

I only recently discovered the permil (cf. percent), a typographic character that enables you to give a fraction equal to one part in one thousand without using a decimal point. For example 12.3% = 123‰ (“twelve-point-three percent is equal to one hundred and twenty-three permil”).

There is also a symbol (‱) for basis points (aka permyriad), parts in ten thousand. For example 12.34% = 123.4‰ = 1234‱ (“twelve-point-three-four percent is equal to one hundred and twenty-three-point-four permil or one thousand, two hundred and thirty-four basis points”).

A large number of fonts are unable to render the permil and/or basis point symbols correctly, so the post above may be missing some symbols.