Eszett (ß ẞ): The Sharp S, Swiss ss and the Capital Problem
Eszett, ß, is the German sharp s, written for an s sound after a long vowel or a diphthong, as in Straße and weiß. Copy ß or its capital ẞ from the tiles below, or type Alt+0223 on Windows. Without the key, write ss. Switzerland and Liechtenstein may always write ss, and STRASSE stays correct in capitals.
How do you type ß on a keyboard or phone?
On a Mac, ß is Option+S; on Windows it is Alt+0223. Each row below gives the documented method for one device or app; the vendor help pages they come from are linked under the table.
| Device or app | Keys |
|---|---|
| Mac | Option+S How to type accents on a Mac |
| Windows | Alt+0223 How to type accents on Windows |
| Windows, US-International | AltGr+S |
| Microsoft Word | Ctrl+Shift+&, then S How to type accents in Word |
| Google Docs | Insert, then Symbols, then Special characters, then search "latin small letter sharp s" How to type accents in Google Docs |
Sources:Mac (Apple) (opens in a new tab)Windows (Microsoft) (opens in a new tab)Windows, US-International (Microsoft) (opens in a new tab)Microsoft Word (Microsoft) (opens in a new tab)Google Docs (Google) (opens in a new tab)
- ß sharp s · used in 1 language
- ẞ capital sharp s
Which common words use ß?
FrequencyWords counts the words used in film and TV subtitles, and its lists give these as the most frequent words with ß in each language, most common first.
- weiß
- weißt
- scheiße
- heißt
- draußen
- große
- spaß
- bloß
When does German write ß and when ss?
German writes the Eszett for a voiceless s after a long vowel or a diphthong. After a short vowel it writes ss. That is the whole choice, and the vowel decides it. The Amtliches Regelwerk (opens in a new tab), the official German spelling rules, gives ß in § 25. It applies when no other consonant follows in the word stem: Maß, Straße, groß, draußen, Fleiß. The one exception it names is aus.
The ss comes from a different rule, § 2. A short stressed vowel followed by a single consonant doubles that consonant, as in Hass and dass. So one word family can switch between the two spellings when its vowel changes length. The Regelwerk's own example is fließen, floss, Fluss and Floß.
| Word | Vowel before the s | Spelling | Wiktionary IPA | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fuß | long u | ß | /fuːs/ | foot |
| Fluss | short u | ss | /flʊs/ | river |
| Floß | long o | ß | /floːs/ | raft |
| weiß | the diphthong ai | ß | /vaɪ̯s/ | white; also a form of wissen, to know |
| dass | short a | ss | /das/ | that, the conjunction |
The sounds come from Wiktionary's entries for Fuß (opens in a new tab), Fluss (opens in a new tab), Floß (opens in a new tab), weiß (opens in a new tab) and dass (opens in a new tab). Wiktionary notes that dass was spelled daß (opens in a new tab) until the spelling reform of 1996.
The frequent words in the block above follow the rule too. Each of them, from weiß to bloß, has a long vowel or a diphthong before its Eszett.
Why is the sharp s called Eszett?
The name Eszett spells out where the letter came from. Wiktionary derives it from Es, the German name of s, and Zett, the name of z. The letter began as a ligature of the long s, ſ, and a z. German also says scharfes S, and Unicode's English name for the letter is LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S. Wiktionary's entry for ß (opens in a new tab) calls scharfes S the less suitable German name, because it also means the sound /s/ however it is spelled.
Outside German the Eszett is rare. Among the CLDR alphabets in the languages block below, only German has it. Wiktionary adds the German-based spelling of Central Franconian. It marks ß as obsolete in Lower Sorbian, and as an old Swedish ligature for ss.
Why do Switzerland and Liechtenstein write ss for ß?
The official rules allow them to drop the Eszett. § 25 E2 of the Regelwerk says that where ß is not available, you write ss. It adds that in Switzerland and in Liechtenstein ss may always be written, with the example Straße and Strasse. The 2018 edition (opens in a new tab) of the rules named only Switzerland. The 2024 edition names Liechtenstein beside it.
Swiss federal texts use this freedom. The Federal Chancellery's style guide, the Schreibweisungen (opens in a new tab), writes Grossbuchstaben and Hauptstrasse. We searched its PDF text on 2026-10-09 and found no ß at all. The same search on the German Regelwerk finds hundreds.
The cost of the swap is that some words collide. Wiktionary records the Swiss and Liechtenstein spelling of two ß words as an existing ss word:
| Spelling in Germany and Austria | Spelling in Switzerland and Liechtenstein | The ss word it meets |
|---|---|---|
| Maße, plural of Maß, measure: /ˈmaːsə/ | Masse | Masse, mass: /ˈmasə/ |
| Buße, penance or a fine: [ˈbuːsə] | Busse | Busse, buses: /ˈbʊsə/ |
| Straße, street | Strasse | none |
The entries are Maß (opens in a new tab), Maße (opens in a new tab), Masse (opens in a new tab), Buße (opens in a new tab) and Busse (opens in a new tab). In Swiss text the reader tells them apart by context. Wiktionary gives Masse both /ˈmasə/ and /ˈmaːsə/.
When did ß get a capital letter, ẞ?
The capital Eszett reached Unicode first and the spelling rules in 2017. The SS spelling was there before and stays, the Council says. Each step below is cited from the body that took it.
| When | Source | What it says about the capital sharp s |
|---|---|---|
| 4 April 2008 | Unicode 5.1.0 | adds U+1E9E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S; SS stays the recommended uppercase of ß |
| 29 June 2017 | press release of the Council for German Orthography | ẞ is allowed beside SS, mainly for names in passports and ID cards |
| 2018 edition | Regelwerk § 25 E3 | in capitals you write SS; ẞ is also possible: STRASSE, STRAẞE |
| 2024 edition | Regelwerk § 25 E3 | beside the capital ẞ, SS is also possible: STRAẞE, STRASSE |
The release notes for Unicode 5.1.0 (opens in a new tab) call the capital rare and meant for signs and uppercase titles. The Council's press release (opens in a new tab) says the change took effect in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, South Tyrol and German-speaking Belgium.
Read side by side, the two editions swap the order. In 2018 SS comes first and ẞ is the extra. In 2024 ẞ comes first and SS is the extra. Both spellings are correct in both editions. The alphabet at the start of the rules pairs ß with ẞ as its capital in both.
Why does software uppercase ß as SS?
Software uppercases the Eszett as SS because Unicode tells it to. SpecialCasing.txt (opens in a new tab) maps ß to SS in uppercase and to Ss in title case. CaseFolding.txt (opens in a new tab) folds ẞ to ß and both to ss. Unicode 5.1.0 states the consequence: ẞ lowercases to ß, but ß does not uppercase to ẞ. A program that wants ẞ needs a tailored rule.
We ran the common operations on 2026-10-09 in Node.js v26.0.0, which runs ICU 78.3 with CLDR 48, and in Python 3.14.6.
| What the code does | Result |
|---|---|
| uppercase straße, with or without the German locale | STRASSE, one letter longer |
| lowercase STRAẞE | straße |
| lowercase STRASSE | strasse; the ß cannot come back |
| case-insensitive regex for straße against STRASSE | no match |
| Python casefold of Maße and of Masse | both masse, so the two words count as equal |
| German collation at base strength, Straße and Strasse | equal |
| German sort of Masse, Maß, Mass and Maße | Mass, Maß, Masse, Maße: ß after ss |
The last row is the order the Regelwerk asks for, ß filed after ss. The others are traps. Keep the original text whenever you uppercase for display. Only a word list can turn STRASSE back into Straße. A search that folds case will treat Maße as Masse. That suits Swiss text, where both are spelled Masse, and mixes up two words in German text.
What happens to ß in passports and web addresses?
A passport may print the capital Eszett but cannot encode it. ICAO Doc 9303 (opens in a new tab), the passport standard, lets ẞ appear in the visual zone without transliteration. Its table for the machine-readable zone turns ẞ into SS. Domain names went the other way. UTS #46 (opens in a new tab) shows how faß.de once became fass.de and now keeps its sharp s.
| Where the letter goes | What is written | Source |
|---|---|---|
| passport, visual zone | ẞ as it is | ICAO Doc 9303, Part 3, section 3.1 |
| passport, machine-readable zone | SS | ICAO Doc 9303, Part 3, section 6.A |
| web address under IDNA2003 | ss: faß.de became fass.de | UTS #46, table of deviations |
| web address under IDNA2008 | kept: faß.de becomes xn--fa-hia.de | UTS #46, table of deviations |
| Windows Alt code | ß only, Alt+0223; ẞ is not in Windows-1252 | the facts below; Python's cp1252 codec |
UTS #46 says the industry has moved fully to the IDNA2008 behaviour. So fass.de and faß.de are two different addresses today. Node.js's URL parser agreed on 2026-10-09: it turned faß.de into xn--fa-hia.de and left fass.de alone.
How do you pronounce ß?
WikiPron transcribes ß in common words from Wiktionary: in German, weiß is /vaɪ̯s/. The table gives one example word per language.
| Language | Example | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| German | weiß | /vaɪ̯s/ |
Which names and places are spelled with ß?
Given names come from Wikidata, the most widely covered first by the number of Wikipedia editions about them, and places come from the GeoNames list of cities, largest population first, kept only where an official language of the country writes the letter.
- Landstraße (Austria)
- Gießen (Germany)
- Neustadt an der Weinstraße (Germany)
- Weißensee (Germany)
- Weißenfels (Germany)
- Biberach an der Riß (Germany)
- Unterschleißheim (Germany)
- Eißendorf (Germany)
Which languages use ß?
ß is part of the standard alphabet of 1 language in the Unicode CLDR: German.
How to type the letter ß, step by step
Step 1: Windows: Alt+0223 for ß
Turn on Num Lock, hold Alt and type 0223 on the number pad. Release Alt and ß appears. The capital ẞ has no Alt code.
Step 2: Windows: the emoji panel for ẞ
Press Win+. to open the emoji panel, open Symbols and pick ẞ.
Step 3: Microsoft Word: Ctrl+Shift+&, then S
Press Ctrl+Shift+&, let go, then type S, and Word types ß. For ẞ, type 1e9e and press Alt+X.
Step 4: Mac: Option+S for ß
On the US or ABC layout, Option+S types ß in one chord. Adding Shift gives Í, not the capital, so for ẞ press Fn/Globe+E, search for latin capital letter sharp s and click it.
Step 5: Google Docs: search by name
Open Insert, then Symbols, then Special characters, and search for latin small letter sharp s or latin capital letter sharp s.
Step 6: No way to type it: write ss
Where ß cannot be typed at all, the official rules say to write ss: Strasse for Straße. In capitals, write SS.
What is the Unicode code for ß?
ß is U+00DF, LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S, added in Unicode 1.1 in 1993. In UTF-8 it is stored as the bytes C3 9F, and the table gives every escape a developer needs.
| Code point | U+00DF |
|---|---|
| Name | LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S |
| Added in | Unicode 1.1 (1993) |
| UTF-8 bytes | C3 9F |
| HTML | ß ß ß |
| CSS | \00DF |
| JavaScript | \u00DF |
| Python | \u00df |
| URL | %C3%9F |
If a page shows ß instead of ß, its UTF-8 bytes are being read as Windows-1252. Serve the page as UTF-8 (<meta charset="utf-8">) to fix it.
What are the Alt codes for the letter ß?
Hold Alt and type the digits on the number pad with Num Lock on. The top row of digits does not work, and laptops without a number pad need the methods above.
| Letter | Alt code |
|---|---|
| ß | Alt+0223 |
ẞ has no Alt code: Windows cannot type it that way.
Which characters look like ß?
These look like ß but are different characters, and search, sorting and passwords treat them differently:
- ꞵ
-
-
- ẞ
- ꟗ
- Ꟗ
- β
- ϐ
- 𝛃
- 𝛽
- 𝜷
- 𝝱
- 𝞫
- Ᏸ
Which letters are related to the letter ß?
These letter pages share an accent mark or a language with ß ẞ, the most shared languages first.
Whole alphabets with every letter in order, including ß: German alphabet.
Need a letter other than ß?
Frequently asked questions about the letter ß
Is the Eszett just a double s?
No. ss can stand in for the Eszett when ß is missing, but the two are not the same. Unicode encodes ß as one letter with no decomposition into s and s. In German spelling the vowel before them also differs: ß follows a long vowel, as in Maße, and ss a short one, as in Masse.
Is ß the Greek letter beta?
No. ß is LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S, U+00DF, and β is GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA. The shapes are close, and Unicode's confusables data lists β among the look-alikes of ß. A β typed inside a German word is a different character, so a search for the word spelled with ß will not find it.
Should I write SS or ẞ in all capitals?
Either is correct. § 25 E3 of the official rules allows STRAẞE and STRASSE. Software gives SS by default, and a passport's machine-readable line uses SS. The Council for German Orthography added ẞ mainly so that names in passports and ID cards can be spelled exactly.
What is the HTML code for ß and ẞ?
ß has a named entity, ß, and the numeric forms ß and ß. The capital ẞ has no named entity, so write ẞ or ẞ. In a UTF-8 page you can paste either letter as it is: ß takes the bytes C3 9F and ẞ takes E1 BA 9E.
Was dass once spelled daß?
Yes. Wiktionary marks daß as the standard spelling until the spelling reform of 1996. Under the current rules the conjunction has a short a, /das/, and a short vowel takes ss. The Regelwerk lists dass among its examples of a doubled consonant after a short vowel.