Indian rupee symbol

Click the rupee symbol below to copy it, then paste it into any price, invoice or message. The Indian rupee symbol ₹ is one of the youngest currency signs on Earth — adopted in 2010 — yet it already stands on every Indian price tag. This page gives you the rupee symbol text itself, its regional cousins, the codes behind it, and the honest answer to the question that confuses everyone: when do you write ₹, when Rs, and when INR?

Fastest choice: the card above copies ₹ (U+20B9), the official Indian rupee sign — the one to use in prices and documents today.

Copy and paste rupee symbols

“Rupee” is a family, not a single country: India’s ₹ has relatives in the generic rupee sign ₨ (still used for the Pakistani and Sri Lankan rupees), the Bengali sign ৳ (Bangladesh’s taka), and the historic Gujarati and Tamil rupee marks. The text cards copy the two written forms — the rs symbol letters and the inr symbol code — and the last two cards copy ready-formatted sample amounts.

₹, Rs or INR — three ways to write the same money

₹ — the symbol. The official sign, used before an amount with no space: ₹500. This is the modern default on price tags, e-commerce and bills.
Rs — the abbreviation. The older written short form (and Re for a single rupee in very old texts). Still seen in handwriting, informal notes and older software: Rs. 500. It is letters, not a symbol — which is exactly why it survived the decades when keyboards had no ₹ key.
INR — the code. The ISO 4217 currency code, used wherever ambiguity is expensive: bank transfers, forex, invoices between countries — “INR 500”. Codes identify the currency to machines; symbols show it to people. You will also still meet the generic rupee sign ₨ (U+20A8), the pre-2010 catch-all that Pakistan and Sri Lanka kept.

Designed in 2010 — the story inside the sign

Until 2010 India’s currency had no sign of its own — only the borrowed “Rs”. A national competition changed that: on 15 July 2010 the government adopted the design of Udaya Kumar, a postgraduate from IIT Bombay who later taught at IIT Guwahati. His mark fuses two scripts in one stroke — the Devanagari letter र (Ra, for rupiya) and the Roman capital R — crossed by two parallel top lines. Those twin lines are not decoration: they deliberately echo an equals sign, a nod to reducing economic inequality, and they make the silhouette read as a flag’s top stripe. Unicode followed within weeks (10 August 2010), giving the sign its permanent address, U+20B9 — which is why, alone among major currency signs, it has no old typewriter-era Alt code legacy.

Writing amounts the Indian way — lakhs and crores

India groups digits differently, and ₹ amounts follow the local system: the first comma comes after three digits, then every TWO digits — because the counting words are thousand, lakh (1,00,000) and crore (1,00,00,000).

Both formats are understood in India; the Indian grouping is standard in Indian banking, government and news, and it is the format Indian readers expect next to a ₹.

Rupee symbol codes

How to type ₹ — the short version

Windows with an Indian keyboard layout: Ctrl + Alt + 4 (or AltGr + 4).
Word: type 20B9 then Alt + X, or Alt + 8377 on the numeric keypad.
Mac: Character Viewer (Control + Command + Space), search “rupee” — macOS has no default ₹ key combo.
Phone: on the symbols keyboard, long-press the $ key (or the currency key on Indian layouts) and choose ₹.
Anywhere else: copy it from the top of this page — one click, guaranteed correct.

Explore more symbols

₹ is one member of the full currency symbols family — its smallest relative is the cent symbol ¢, and its newest neighbour is the Saudi riyal symbol, another sign designed in our century. Its oldest neighbour is the pound symbol £, the crossed-L sign from the Latin libra.

Typing it instead of copying? The step-by-step keyboard guide shows how to type the rupee symbol on Windows, Mac and phones — every layout, code and shortcut.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between ₹ and Rs?

₹ is the official symbol (adopted 2010); Rs is the older abbreviation written in letters. Both mean Indian rupees — ₹ is the modern choice for prices and print, Rs survives in handwriting, older software and informal notes.

Is INR the rupee symbol?

No — INR is the international currency CODE (ISO 4217), used in banking and forex. The symbol is ₹. Think of it like USD versus $: the code names the currency for systems, the symbol displays it for people.

How do I type ₹ on a keyboard without a rupee key?

In Word, type 20B9 and press Alt + X, or hold Alt and type 8377 on the numeric keypad. With an Indian keyboard layout added, Ctrl + Alt + 4 works system-wide. On a Mac, use the Character Viewer — or copy ₹ from this page.

Why does ₹ have two lines on top?

By design: the parallel strokes echo an equals sign — designer Udaya Kumar’s reference to economic equality — and together with the Ra/R shape they give the sign its distinctive, flag-like silhouette.

Which other countries use a rupee?

Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal also call their currencies rupees, but they write them with Rs or the generic sign ₨ — the ₹ sign belongs to India alone. Indonesia’s rupiah (Rp) is a different currency with a similar name.