Cent sign (¢)
The cent sign (¢) marks an amount in cents, hundredths of a dollar, written straight after the number: 75¢.
How to read it
Unicode names the character CENT SIGN (U+00A2). A cent, in the American Heritage Dictionary’s definition, is a unit of currency equal to 1/100 of various currencies, including the US dollar and the euro; the word came into English through Old French from Latin centum, a hundred. The US Government Publishing Office’s style manual lists ¢ with c and ct as the abbreviations for cent and cents, and sets it close up to the figure with no space: 3¢ to 5¢. Where an amount is written with the dollar sign, the same manual writes $0.75, or 75 cents in words.
Also searched as: ¢, cent sign, cent sign symbol, cents symbol, c with a line through it, what does ¢ mean.
These describe what each sign means and which currency uses it. They are not financial advice, and they give no prices or exchange rates.
Look-alikes
The cedi sign ₵ (U+20B5), for the currency of Ghana, can look like the cent sign. Unicode notes that its glyph may look like a C with a stroke through it, or like a C with a short vertical stroke through the upper arm, and points from it to ¢. The mill sign ₥ (U+20A5), which Unicode also links to ¢, is a US unit of a tenth of a cent.
Read next
- Next in Currency symbolsEuro sign (€)The euro sign (€) stands for the euro, the single currency of the member countries of the European Economic and Monetary Union. It is based on the Greek letter epsilon, crossed by two parallel lines for stability.
- The same shape in Smoke and CO alarm soundsLow-frequency 520 Hz alarm (sleeping rooms)A fire alarm in a sleeping room that sounds a low buzz in place of a high-pitched beep. It is the three-beep fire alarm rhythm at 520 Hz, which NFPA 72 requires of alarms provided to wake people in sleeping areas.
More currency symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with letters and numbers or lines.
Sources
- C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement: Range 0080–00FF (code chart), The Unicode Standard, Version 18.0, Unicode Consortium, Latin-1 Supplement, 00A2
- Currency Symbols: Range 20A0–20CF (code chart), The Unicode Standard, Version 18.0, Unicode Consortium, 20A5, 20B5
- cent (American Heritage Dictionary entry), The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition, HarperCollins Publishers, cent, n.
- U.S. Government Publishing Office Style Manual, 2016, GPO Style Manual (2016 edition), U.S. Government Publishing Office, 9.60 (Money); 10.6; 12.9k
- History of U.S. Currency, U.S. Currency Education Program, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Timeline: 1792
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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