¥ Yen Symbol — Copy and Paste, Alt Code

01 — Origin

Where the Yen symbol comes from

The yen sign is a Latin Y with two strokes, built the same way as the pound and the euro: take the first letter of the currency’s name and cross it. It dates to the 1870s, when Japan reformed its currency along Western lines and needed a mark that printers already had type for.

Japanese prices, where it sits before the number: ¥1,000. The same character serves the Chinese yuan in Latin text, though Chinese writing usually uses 元 or 圆 instead.

Worth knowing

On Japanese keyboards this key produces a backslash in some encodings — a legacy of Shift-JIS that still occasionally breaks file paths.

02 — Codes

Yen symbol codes

Copy whichever form your tool expects. The character behind them does not change.

03 — How to type

How to type ¥ on any keyboard

Keyboard, code, markup or document — the route to U+00A5 differs by tool.

Windows

Hold Alt and type 165 on the numeric keypad, then release. Without a keypad, use the Character Map app (search “charmap”).

Mac

Press Control + Command + Space to open the character viewer, then search “yen”. Double-click to insert.

Phone

There is no shortcut on a phone keyboard. Tap the symbol at the top of this page, then long-press in any text field and choose Paste.

Web and code

In HTML write ¥ or ¥. In CSS content: "\00A5". Make sure the page is served as UTF-8 and the raw character works too.

04 — Font support

Will ¥ actually show up?

We checked 147 fonts installed on a normal machine and counted how many of them contain this character. A symbol missing from a font is drawn as an empty box — the text is still correct, it just cannot be drawn.

98% 144 of 147 fonts

Safe everywhere. This one is in almost every font ever installed, including the defaults on Windows, Mac and Android.

05 — Similar

Symbols people confuse with ¥

These look alike but are different characters — different codes, different fonts, sometimes different meaning.

£ Pound SignU+A3 · has its own page ¢ Cent SignU+A2 · has its own page $ Dollar SignU+24 · has its own page

06 — Related

Other currency symbols

Relatives of this character. Each has its own page with origin, typing and font coverage.

₹ Rupee symbolIn 42% of system fonts ¢ Cent symbolIn 97% of system fonts € Euro symbolIn 94% of system fonts $ Dollar symbolIn 97% of system fonts £ Pound symbolIn 97% of system fonts

07 — Same block

Currency symbols

Every currency sign, from the euro to the rupee and the bitcoin.

All currency symbols →

08 — FAQ

Yen symbol — questions

How do I type the Yen symbol?

On Windows hold Alt and type 165 on the numeric keypad. On Mac open the character viewer with Control + Command + Space and search “Yen”. Or just tap the symbol on this page — it goes straight to your clipboard.

What is the HTML code for ¥?

Write it as ¥ or ¥ in HTML, \00A5 in CSS content, and \u00A5 in JavaScript. All four produce the same character.

Is ¥ an emoji?

No. ¥ is a text character — it takes the colour of the text around it and works in usernames, filenames and documents. An emoji is replaced by a colour picture and is sometimes stripped by forms and systems.

Why does ¥ show as a box on some devices?

Because that font has no drawing for this character. We checked 147 fonts on a normal machine and 144 of them include it. The character itself is always correct; only the drawing is missing.

¥Yen symbol