Spelling - Writing Percent/Per Cent and Percentages

People often confuse writing numbers and percentages. Do you write 40%, 40 percent or 40 per cent? When writing, you should always write either per cent or percent and never %. Some people also confuse writing the word percent/per cent with the word percentage.

Let’s look at the very simple way of remembering the common practice. When you are writing with a number, you should write either percent or per cent. When you are writing without a number, you should always write percentage. Here are the examples:

The burgers were 50 percent/per cent beef.

What percentage beef was in the burgers?

Now you may have noticed I wrote both percent and per cent. So which is the correct way?

Both are correct. When writing in American English the term percent is one word. In British English, it is classed as two words: per cent.

It isn’t a hard set rule in England to write it as two words, and it is starting to evolve into one word in British English. It all depends on the writer’s preference.