About Colon Sign
Colon Sign is the Unicode character ₡ at codepoint U+20A1 in the Currency Symbols block of the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP).
Reference
A capital C crossed by a diagonal stroke, for the colón — Costa Rica's currency, and formerly El Salvador's. Unicode's entire annotation on the character is those two countries. The name has nothing to do with the punctuation colon: both the coin and the mark are named for Cristóbal Colón. It has been in the standard since Unicode 1.1, among the first tranche of the Currency Symbols block, and it has no named HTML entity — a general property of that block, where only the euro got one. Costa Rican convention puts it before the amount, sometimes spaced and sometimes not.
Typical uses
- Costa Rican prices, exchange rates and fuel pricing
- Historically El Salvador, which adopted the US dollar in 2001
- Localisation and typesetting, rather than everyday keyboard input — no standard layout carries it
At a glance
- U+20A1, Currency Symbols; Unicode 1.1; general category Sc
- East Asian Width Neutral; no named HTML entity — use ₡
- ISO 4217: CRC, Costa Rican Colon, two decimal places
- SVC, El Salvador Colon, is still carried in the active ISO 4217 list
Historical Notes
Origins
A barred capital C, following the same abbreviation habit as the cedi sign of Ghana and half the block: take the initial letter, rule a stroke through it, and the letter becomes money. The letter here is the C of Colón.
Unicode
Present since Unicode 1.1, in the original Currency Symbols block. It is older in the standard than the euro sign, which did not arrive until 2.1.
Two countries, one of which left
Unicode's annotation names Costa Rica and El Salvador. El Salvador dollarised in 2001, but its colón has not been struck from ISO 4217 — SVC is still present in the active list published on 1 January 2026, alongside CRC. Why a code outlives everyday use of the currency is a question for the maintenance agency rather than for the character; what is verifiable here is that the code is still there.
Developer Notes
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| Decimal | |
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| UTF-16 (hex) | |
| HEX Entity | |
| HTML Entity | |
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How to Use Colon Sign
To use the Colon Sign symbol (₡) in HTML, insert the
entity ₡ directly into your markup. The decimal entity ₡ works in any HTML-serialised document.
In CSS pseudo-elements use content: '\20A1';.
In JavaScript and TypeScript the escape '\u20A1' evaluates to ₡. In Python source, write '\u20A1'.
The character encodes to E2 82 A1 as UTF-8 bytes and 20A1 as UTF-16 code units. Its decimal codepoint is 8353.
This is a text-based Unicode character. It will render in the current font on most platforms. If a font lacks this glyph, the browser may show a placeholder or fall back to a system font.
Things to know
- No named HTML entity. The numeric references ₡ and ₡ are the only options, which is true of every character in the Currency Symbols block except the euro.
- The nearest confusable is the cedi sign at U+20B5: both are barred capital Cs, in the same block, and both get flattened to a plain C by software that lacks the glyph.
- No standard keyboard layout produces it. Expect CRC or a bare C in user-entered text, and normalise on input rather than assuming the real character.
- East Asian Width Neutral; general category Sc; bidirectional class ET.
- Searching for it by name is genuinely hard, because "colon sign" collides with the punctuation mark in every index. Search the codepoint.
In the Wild
Observed on CRHoy's economy section on 3 August 2026, where it appeared eight times in the page furniture rather than in the prose:
- The economic indicators strip led with the exchange rate as "₡ 450.75 Tipo de Cambio" — sign, space, amount.
- The fuel panel listed pump prices unspaced: "₡756.00 Súper ₡755.00 Regular ₡683.00 Diesel", sourced to Recope.
Both spacings on the same page, which is a fair picture of how the convention actually behaves. La Nación's economy section, the same day, carried none. Pages change; this is what those two showed on the day.
FAQ
Is this the punctuation colon?
No. That is U+003A. This is a currency sign for the colón, named for Cristóbal Colón — the Spanish name for Christopher Columbus. The collision is in English spelling only.
Which countries use it?
Unicode's annotation names Costa Rica and El Salvador. El Salvador moved to the US dollar in 2001, though its ISO code SVC is still in the active list.
Is there an HTML entity?
Not a named one. Use ₡ or ₡.
How do I tell it from the cedi sign?
The stroke. This one is crossed diagonally; the cedi sign is drawn with a vertical stroke through the upper arm. In a font that has neither, both collapse to a plain C.