Numbers to Chinese Uppercase (RMB in Words)
Number → RMB amount in Chinese words per check-writing rules, plus reverse lookup with a round-trip check.
Invoices, contracts and expense claims in China require the amount in both digits and Chinese uppercase words: the ornate financial numerals (the yi-er-san-si series) are hard to alter unnoticed, making them the last line of defense against tampering. The rules are fiddly — when to write ling (zero) and how many times, where the zheng suffix goes, why 15 becomes shi-wu rather than yi-shi-wu — and anyone who fills forms rarely gets them all right. Type a number and this tool emits the check-valid wording instantly.
The rules follow the PBOC "Correct Filling of Negotiable Instruments" specification: zero-merging, placement of ling at the yuan and jiao positions, the zheng suffix and more. Besides the currency form it also produces plain uppercase numerals and the ordinary Chinese reading (useful for contract numbers and quantity fields). The reverse direction parses written amounts back into digits — and the tool reads its own output back through the parser and compares, so a green round-trip badge means the two directions agree with each other.
Three rules for the zero (ling)
Zeros inside a group merge into one: 1005 reads yi-qian-ling-wu. Zeros at a group boundary go before the next group: 10000500 reads yi-qian-wan-ling-wu-bai — still a single ling even across several empty groups. When the ones digit is 0 but jiao is not, a ling follows yuan: 1680.32 reads yi-qian-liu-bai-ba-shi yuan ling san-jiao-er-fen. That last ling is optional per the regulation; this tool takes the stricter bank-counter form — an extra ling is always safer than a missing one, because ling seals the gap where a digit could be inserted and altered.
The zheng suffix and the bare-shi rule
Amounts ending at yuan take the zheng suffix; ending at jiao may take it (this tool writes it); ending at fen never does — fen is the smallest unit, nothing left to alter. Amounts from 10 to 19 lead with bare shi (the character for ten): ￥15 → shi-wu yuan zheng, ￥10.5 → shi yuan ling wu-jiao zheng; from 101 on it is yi-bai-ling-yi as usual, and negative amounts keep the leading yi: fu-yi-shi-wu, not fu-shi-wu. These are exactly the details bank tellers reject forms over.
Frequently asked questions
- What if the number has more than two decimals?
- Currency is exact to fen (two decimals). Extra digits are rounded half-up into fen with a visible note: 1234.567 becomes yi-qian-er-bai-san-shi-si yuan wu-jiao-qi-fen. The plain "uppercase numerals" output reads every decimal digit verbatim without rounding.
- How large a number is supported?
- Up to 16 integer digits — 9999 wan-yi, about 10^16 — covering instruments, contracts and virtually all financial work. Beyond that the tool reports an error instead of printing a wrong answer.
- What is the reverse lookup for?
- Verifying forms someone else filled in: paste the written amount under "Words → Number" to get the digits plus a canonical re-encoding of the parse — sign off only when the original and the re-encoding agree. A mis-typed lookalike character fails loudly as "not recognized" instead of producing a wrong number.
- How are negatives and alternate characters handled?
- A minus sign is preserved as a leading fu (negative amounts on paper are usually written in red ink; the words serve the notes field). The alternate written form of yuan — the one with the round radical, common on banknotes — is accepted as a synonym, and the reverse parser accepts both zheng variants (the plain and the "upright" one).