Numbers in Spanish

0 to 30

11 to 15 have their own words. From 16 to 29 the number is one word, built from the parts: diez y seis became dieciséis, veinte y tres became veintitrés. Watch the written accents on dieciséis, veintidós, veintitrés and veintiséis.

Tens, hundreds and beyond

The rules that trip people up

• Y only joins tens and units. Treinta y cinco, ciento treinta y cinco, but never ciento y treinta.
• Uno changes before a noun. It becomes un before a masculine noun and una before a feminine one, even inside bigger numbers: veintiún años (21 years), treinta y una semanas (31 weeks).
• Cien or ciento. Exactly 100, or 100 before a noun, mil or millones, is cien: cien euros, cien mil. With more digits after it, it's ciento: ciento veinte.
• Hundreds agree with the noun. Doscientos libros but doscientas páginas; quinientos pesos but quinientas personas.
• Three irregular hundreds. Quinientos (500), setecientos (700) and novecientos (900), not cincocientos, sietecientos or nuevecientos.
• Mil stands alone. 1,000 is mil, not un mil; 2,000 is dos mil. Miles de means "thousands of".
• Millón is a noun. It takes de before what it counts: un millón de habitantes, dos millones de euros. And mil millones is an English billion; un billón is a million million.

Written numbers vary by country. Spain writes 1.000 and 3,50; Mexico and most of Central America write 1,000 and 3.50, as in English. When in doubt, read from context.

Dates

Day, then month, then year, and months and weekdays are lowercase: enero, febrero, marzo, abril, mayo, junio, julio, agosto, septiembre, octubre, noviembre, diciembre. For the first of the month, Latin America mostly says el primero; Spain mostly says el uno. Years are read as one whole number, never split in pairs the way English says "nineteen ninety-eight". Short dates are day first too: 23/10/2026.

Telling the time

It's es la una for one o'clock and son las… for every other hour, because hora is feminine and one is singular. For the minutes before the hour, Spain counts back with menos (las cinco menos cuarto); much of Latin America, Mexico included, says un cuarto para las cinco. De la mañana, de la tarde and de la noche do the job of a.m. and p.m. Timetables use the 24-hour clock: 20:30 is las veinte treinta.

Prices

In shops, people usually drop the currency and the con: "tres cincuenta". In Spain the cents are céntimos; in Latin America, centavos.

Phone numbers

Phone numbers are read in groups, not digit by digit. Spanish mobile numbers have nine digits and are often read as a group of three and three pairs: 612 34 56 78 is seis doce, treinta y cuatro, cincuenta y seis, setenta y ocho. Mexican numbers have ten digits and are often read in pairs: 55 12 34 56 78 is cincuenta y cinco, doce, treinta y cuatro, cincuenta y seis, setenta y ocho. If you need to, ask for it one by one: ¿Me lo dices número por número?

Ordinals: first, second, third

Ordinals agree with the noun: la primera vez, los segundos platos. Primero and tercero shorten before a masculine singular noun: el primer día, el tercer piso. Past ten, people normally switch to plain numbers: el piso doce, el siglo veintiuno (the 21st century, written siglo XXI).

Questions