U+00A3 · Latin-1 Supplement

Pound Sign £

The pound sign denotes the British pound sterling and is also used for currencies like the Egyptian, Lebanese, and Syrian pounds, as well as the Gibraltar and Falkland Islands pounds. Its shape comes from a stylized capital L, for the Latin libra. In the UK it sits on the standard keyboard, but people using US layouts frequently need to copy it for prices and invoices.

WindowsAlt 156 / 0163

MacOption + 3

UnicodeU+00A3

HTML£

£U+00A3

Character codes

Unicode code point	`U+00A3`
Decimal	`163`
HTML named entity	`£`
HTML (hex)	`£`
HTML (decimal)	`£`
CSS	`\00A3`
JavaScript	`\u00A3`
Python	`\u00A3`
UTF-8 bytes	`C2 A3`
UTF-16	`00A3`
URL-encoded	`%C2%A3`

Character details

Official name	POUND SIGN
Unicode block	Latin-1 Supplement
General category	Currency Symbol (Sc)
SymbolHero category	Currency Symbols
Emoji	No

How to type £

Windows

Hold Alt and type 156 on the numeric keypad (Num Lock on), then release Alt. Alt 156 uses the code page 437.
Hold Alt and type 0163 on the numeric keypad (Num Lock on), then release Alt. Alt 0163 uses the Windows-1252 code page.
In Microsoft Word or Outlook: type 00A3 then press Alt + X.
Open Character Map (search “Character Map” in Start), tick “Advanced view”, search for “pound sign”, then Select and Copy.

Mac

Press Option + 3 (US English keyboard layout).
Press Control + Command + Space to open the Character Viewer, search “pound sign”, and double-click the result.
With the Unicode Hex Input keyboard enabled (System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources), hold Option and type 00A3.

iPhone & Android

Tap Copy at the top of this page, then long-press where you want it and choose Paste.

Docs & web

Google Docs: Insert → Special characters, then search “pound sign” or enter U+00A3.
HTML: £ or £
Excel / Google Sheets: =UNICHAR(163)

Examples

Tickets from £25
Rent: £1,150 per month
The fare rose to £2.80
Budget of £3m approved

Good to know

Don’t mix it up: Often confused with the hash # (U+0023), which Americans call the pound sign, and with the Italian lira sign ₤ (U+20A4), which has two crossbars.

Tip: Place it directly before the number with no space (£10), and use 'p' for pence rather than a decimal like £0.50 when writing informally.

Display: the character itself is always the same code point, but its shape comes from the font on the device showing it. If you see an empty box, the font lacks this glyph—the text is still correct.