The phrase per mille () indicates parts per thousand. The associated symbol is , similar to a per cent sign but with an extra zero in the

divisor In mathematics, a divisor of an integer n, also called a factor of n, is an integer m that may be multiplied by some integer to produce n. In this case, one also says that n is a '' multiple'' of m. An integer n is divisible or evenly divisibl ...

. Major dictionaries do not agree on the spelling, giving other options of per mil, per mill, permil, permill, permille. The word is the

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

in Dutch, German, Finnish and Swedish, and is sometimes seen as a

loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

in English with the same meaning as ''per mille''. (Page 258) The symbol is included in the General Punctuation block of

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

at .Unicode.
General Punctuation
. 2014. Accessed 5 Aug 2014. There is also an Arabic-Indic per mille sign at .

Examples

Blood alcohol concentration

Promille and permille are likely best known as shorthand terms for Blood Alcohol Concentration, where 1 promille corresponds to 1 gram of alcohol per liter of blood. Promille is used in the legal limits of blood-alcohol content for driving a road vehicle in some countries: for example: 0.5‰ or 0.8‰.

Cost per mille

Sales and marketing

Cost per mille Cost per mille (CPM), also called cost per thousand (CPT) (in Latin, French and Italian, ''mille'' means ''one thousand''), is a commonly-used measurement in advertising. It is the cost an advertiser pays for one thousand views or impressions of ...

(CPM), the price of 1000 units, may be used for views of banner and display advertising, and for emails delivered by email service providers.

Insurance

In UK insurance usage, the cost per mille is the rate per £1000 of insured value. In India, the premium per mille is the rate expressed as thousandths of the sum assured.

Gradients

Gradients (in some countries in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

) may be expressed as mm/m or m/km, and written with the per mille symbol.

Isotope ratios

Per mille may be used to express stable-isotope ratios—for example: "δ¹³C was measured at −3.5‰"

Taxation

Charity fraction

In Italy, it is possible to nominate a charity or charities to receive "five per mille" (5‰) of personal taxation payments.

Property tax

Property tax A property tax (whose rate is expressed as a percentage or per mille, also called ''millage'') is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or Wealth t ...

ation rates may be expressed as the ''

millage A property tax (whose rate is expressed as a percentage or per mille, also called ''millage'') is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or net we ...

rate'' (

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

) or ''mill rate'' (

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

), from

mill (currency) The mill (American English) or mil (Commonwealth English, except Canada) is a unit of currency, used in several countries as one-thousandth of the base unit. It is symbolized as ₥ (). In the United States, it is a notional unit equivalent to a ...

, one thousandth of a dollar.

Quantile

Permille may also be used to express a 1000-quantile ("999th permille"), but this usage is rare and largely obsolete. Modern publications instead use fractional percentiles ("99.9th percentile").

Salinity

Seawater

salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt (chemistry), salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensio ...

is often expressed per mille. Average marine salinity is about 35 parts per thousand or 35‰ (3.5%).

Related units

Percentage point A percentage point or percent point is the unit (measurement), unit for the difference (mathematics), arithmetic difference between two percentages. For example, moving up from 40 percent to 44 percent is an increase of 4 percentage points (altho ...

difference of 1 part in 100 *

Percentage In mathematics, a percentage () is a number or ratio expressed as a fraction (mathematics), fraction of 100. It is often Denotation, denoted using the ''percent sign'' (%), although the abbreviations ''pct.'', ''pct'', and sometimes ''pc'' are ...

(%) 1 part in 100 *

Basis point A basis point (often abbreviated as bp, often pronounced as "bip" or "beep") is one hundredth of 1 percentage point. Changes of interest rates are often stated in basis points. For example, if an existing interest rate of 10 percent is increased ...

(bp) difference of 1 part in 10,000 *

Permyriad A basis point (often abbreviated as bp, often pronounced as "bip" or "beep") is one hundredth of 1 percentage point. Changes of interest rates are often stated in basis points. For example, if an existing interest rate of 10 percent is increased ...

(‱) 1 part in 10,000 *

Per cent mille A per cent mille or pcm is one one-thousandth of a percent. It can be thought of as a "milli-percent". It is commonly used in epidemiology, and in nuclear reactor engineering as a unit of reactivity. Epidemiology Statistics of crime rates, mort ...