Unicode Code Point Calculator
Work out the encoding size and plane of a Unicode code point.
About Unicode Code Point Calculator
A code point is the abstract character number, and encoding determines how many bytes represent it. Anything above U+FFFF needs four UTF-8 bytes or a UTF-16 surrogate pair. Emoji sit above U+FFFF, which is why they behave as two units in languages with UTF-16 strings and break naive character counting.
Formula
Unicode Code Point
UTF-8 needs 1 byte to U+007F, 2 to U+07FF, 3 to U+FFFF and 4 beyond
- code point
- The numeric identity of a character, independent of encoding
- plane
- A block of 65,536 code points
Worked example
With the default values below, Unicode Code Point Calculator returns UTF-8 Bytes Required of 4. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Code point value in decimalaccepts 0–1,114,111
- 128,512
Results
- UTF-8 Bytes Required
- 4 bytes
- UTF-16 Code Units Required
- 2
- Hexadecimal Code Point
- U+1f600
- Unicode Plane
- Supplementary Multilingual Plane
- Requires a Surrogate Pair
- Yes
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Unicode Code Point
- 3UTF-8 Bytes Required= 4 bytes
- 4UTF-16 Code Units Required= 2
- 5Hexadecimal Code Point= U+1f600
- 6Unicode Plane= Supplementary Multilingual Plane
- 7Requires a Surrogate Pair= Yes
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the single input listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to whole numbers, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Unicode Code Point calculated?
UTF-8 needs 1 byte to U+007F, 2 to U+07FF, 3 to U+FFFF and 4 beyond A code point is the abstract character number, and encoding determines how many bytes represent it. Anything above U+FFFF needs four UTF-8 bytes or a UTF-16 surrogate pair.
Why does Unicode Code Point matter?
Emoji sit above U+FFFF, which is why they behave as two units in languages with UTF-16 strings and break naive character counting.
What values do I need to enter?
This calculator takes 1 input: Code point value in decimal. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.