Writing Amounts in Words

Why the Amount Is Written Twice

Figures are easy to change: a 1 can become a 7, and a digit can be added in front of "500". Words are much harder to alter without leaving a trace, so the written amount works as a check on the figures. Many banks treat the words as the binding amount when the two disagree. Banco de Portugal, for example, tells cheque writers that the amount in words prevails, and Western Union's guide to UK cheques says the bank will usually follow the written line.

That is also why forms ask you to fill the whole line, to start the words at the left edge and to draw a line through the space that is left. The words only protect the payment if nothing can be added before or after them.

Rules That Hold in Every Language

• Write the exact amount. Do not round in words what the figures show with cents. If the cents have to be rounded, round the figures first and write both again.
• Name the currency. Dollars, euros, pesos, yuan: the words should say which currency is meant, unless the form prints it already.
• Write the subunit the way your country does. US checks show cents as a fraction (56/100); most of Europe spells them out (cinquante-six centimes); Russian payment orders keep the kopecks in figures.
• Follow the form. If a bank, tax office or company prescribes a wording, that wording wins over any general rule in this guide.
• Compare words and figures before you sign, and again after someone else has filled in the document for you.

American Checks: "… and 56/100"

On a US check the dollars are written in words and the cents as a fraction of 100, followed by the word Dollars that is usually printed at the end of the line. U.S. Bank's instructions put it simply: write the cents as a fraction over 100, so 10 cents is 10/100.

On a US check "and" is kept for the cents, so the dollars are written without it: "one hundred five", not "one hundred and five". Whole amounts still get 00/100, so the cents part is never left blank.

Compound numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine take a hyphen (rule 6.36 of the U.S. Government Publishing Office Style Manual): twenty-one, forty-five, ninety-nine. Larger parts are separate words with no commas: one thousand two hundred thirty-four.

British Cheques: "and" and "only"

In British writing "hundred and" is the norm, so £105 is "one hundred and five pounds" and £2,005 is "two thousand and five pounds". In a corpus study reported in John Algeo's British or American English? (Cambridge University Press), British texts used "hundred and" before a following number 329 times for every 10 times without it; American texts did so 149 times for every 42.

UK cheques usually spell out the pence too and end with "only", which closes the line: "One thousand two hundred fifty pounds and seventy-five pence only" is the example in Western Union's guide for UK customers. If your bank prescribes another form, follow it.

Millions, Billions and the Words That Change Meaning

English uses the short scale: a billion is a thousand million (10⁹). Many other languages use the long scale, where the word that looks the same means a million million (10¹²): a Spanish billón, a French billion, a German Billion and a Portuguese bilião from Portugal. Brazilian Portuguese, on the other hand, uses bilhão for 10⁹, like English.

So "one billion" in an English contract is "mil millones" in Spanish, "un milliard" in French, "eine Milliarde" in German and "mil milhões" in Portugal. When a contract exists in two languages, check that large amounts were translated by value, not by the look of the word.

The Same Amount in 14 Languages

Here is 1,234.56 in the currency of each country, written as the LeedyBox converter writes it. Won, yen and dong have no subunit in use, so they show 1,234.

What Each Language Gets Wrong Most Often

• Spanish: uno becomes un before a noun and before mil or millones, so it is "veintiún euros" and "veintiún mil", and a round million takes "de": "un millón de euros", but "un millón doscientos mil euros" (RAE, Diccionario panhispánico de dudas).
• Portuguese: "e" joins hundreds, tens and units and comes before the last group when it ends in two zeros: "três milhões novecentos e oitenta e dois mil e quinhentos", as in a guide from the Minas Gerais court of justice.
• French: vingt and cent take an s only when multiplied and at the end: "deux cents euros" but "deux cent vingt euros", "quatre-vingts" but "quatre-vingt mille" (Académie française).
• German: numbers below a million are one word, so the amount line can get long: "eintausendzweihundertvierunddreißig". Million and Milliarde stay separate words.
• Russian: the noun changes with the number: один рубль, два рубля, пять рублей, and тысяча is feminine (одна тысяча, две тысячи).
• Chinese: amounts use 壹贰叁 rather than 一二三, end in 整 when there are no fen, and zeros in the middle become 零 (壹仟肆佰零玖元).
• Thai: a final 1 after tens is เอ็ด and 20 is ยี่สิบ, and whole baht end with ถ้วน.

Decimals, Rounding and Very Large Amounts

Write as many decimals as the currency uses, which is two for dollars, pounds, euros, yuan and most others. If a calculation gives more, such as 1,234.567, round the figures according to the rules of the invoice or contract first; the words must then match the rounded figures. The LeedyBox converter refuses three decimal places instead of rounding silently for you.

Some currencies are written without a subunit in daily use: Korean won, Japanese yen and Vietnamese dong amounts are whole numbers.

Frequently Asked Questions