How to Write Amounts in Chinese Characters (Cheques & Receipts)

If you're doing business in Taiwan, Hong Kong or China, sooner or later you'll have to write a money amount in formal Chinese characters — on a cheque, a receipt, an IOU or a contract. Get the format wrong and a cheque can be rejected. Here's how it works.

Why formal characters at all?

It's about anti-tampering. Ordinary Arabic numerals are trivial to alter — a 1 becomes 11, a decimal point slides over. The formal numerals (大寫) have complex strokes that resist modification, so banks and formal documents require them. This protects both the person writing the amount and the one receiving it.

Note there are two sets of Chinese numerals: everyday ones (一二三) and formal/financial ones (壹貳參). Documents require the formal set.

The digit mapping

The numerals map one-to-one:

Digit	Formal	Digit	Formal
0	零	5	伍
1	壹	6	陸
2	貳	7	柒
3	參	8	捌
4	肆	9	玖

Place values: 拾 (10), 佰 (100), 仟 (1,000), 萬 (10,000), 億 (100,000,000).

Examples: 25 → 貳拾伍; 308 → 參佰零捌; 1,200 → 壹仟貳佰.

Learn the ten digits plus the place-value characters and you can spell any amount. Don't want to do it by hand? Our Chinese amount converter turns any number into the correct formal form instantly.

The zero rule (where people slip)

This trips everyone up:

• A gap in the middle takes a single 零 — and only one 零 even for several zeros in a row. 1,005 → 壹仟零伍; 10,080 → 壹萬零捌拾.
• A trailing zero needs no 零 — just attach the place value. 1,200 → 壹仟貳佰 (not 壹仟貳佰零).

Whole amounts vs decimals

• Whole amount — end with 元整 (or 圓整). 5,000 → 伍仟元整.
• With decimals — the first decimal place is 角, the second is 分, and you drop 整. 123.45 → 壹佰貳拾參元肆角伍分; 100.50 → 壹佰元伍角.

Most Taiwan cheques are whole amounts, so 〇〇〇元整 is by far the most common form.

A practical tip

Before writing a cheque, write the amount out, then read it back against the figures. One mismatched character can cause a rejection. For anything beyond casual use, run it through the converter and copy the result — it handles the zero and decimal rules for you. To pair it with a paper trail, our quotation template keeps the figures and wording consistent across a document.

The bottom line

Writing amounts in formal Chinese is just three things: the digit mapping (壹貳參…), the zero rule (one 零 for an internal gap, none trailing), and the suffixes (元整 for whole amounts; 角/分 for decimals). Learn the pattern, double-check before you sign, and use the Chinese amount converter when accuracy matters — a rejected cheque over a stray character is an avoidable hassle.