Upside Down Question Mark (¿): Copy, Paste and Type It on Any Keyboard
Copy the ¿ symbol in one click and learn to type it on any system, with the Spanish punctuation rules that govern it.
Opening mark · U+00BF
The opening mark ¿ is the mirror image of the closing one. Copy it in a click or type it with your system shortcut.
- Unicode
- U+00BF
- HTML
- ¿
- Windows
- Alt + 0191
What is the upside down question mark?
The upside down question mark (¿) is the opening sign that marks where a question begins in Spanish. It is always paired with the closing mark (?) and occupies Unicode code point U+00BF.
Unlike most languages, Spanish does not rely on intonation or word order to signal that a sentence is a question: it flags it from the very first character. That is why the opening mark is mandatory in careful writing rather than a decorative flourish.
The benefit shows up in long sentences. In «Cuando termines de revisar el informe que te envié ayer por la tarde, ¿me lo reenvías?», the reader knows precisely where the question starts. Without the opening mark you would only discover you were reading a question once you reached the end.
How to type the upside down question mark on every system
These are the shortcuts that actually work on each platform, including the ones other guides skip.
Windows
Requires the numeric keypad with Num Lock on.
On a US-International layout, AltGr + ? also works.
macOS
Press all three keys together.
Or open the Character Viewer with Control + ⌘ + Space.
Linux
On layouts that include an AltGr key.
With a Compose key: Compose then ? twice.
Android
The ¿ appears in the pop-up menu.
Works in Gboard and Samsung Keyboard without switching language.
iPhone & iPad
Slide your finger onto the ¿ symbol.
No need to install the Spanish keyboard.
Word & HTML
Built-in shortcut inside Microsoft Word.
In HTML: ¿ or ¿. In CSS: \00BF.
The reason so many different methods exist is physical: Spanish and Latin American keyboards reserve a dedicated key for the inverted mark, while ANSI layouts used across the US and UK never mapped that character at all. On a laptop bought outside the Spanish-speaking world the direct shortcut simply does not exist, so you fall back on a numeric code or the clipboard.
Windows' Alt + 0191 is the most reliable method because it ignores your layout entirely: it inserts the character by its decimal value in the Latin-1 table. Its one requirement is a real numeric keypad with Num Lock enabled, which many compact laptops no longer have. On those machines, copying the symbol or enabling the Spanish layout in system settings is faster.
When to use it: the Spanish rules
Interrogation marks are paired signs: there is an opening one (¿) and a closing one (?), and both must always be written. Ortografía de la lengua española · Real Academia Española
The rule is subtler than it looks, because the opening mark does not always sit at the start of the sentence. It goes exactly where the question begins, which may be halfway through.
Si no puedes venir, ¿me avisas?
The mark opens only the interrogative part.
¿Si no puedes venir, me avisas?
It swallows text that is not part of the question.
When a sentence is both a question and an exclamation, the RAE allows combining both signs: ¿¡Qué has dicho!? or ¡¿Qué has dicho?!, always opening and closing symmetrically.
So does it matter if you skip it in a chat? In instant messaging the omission is so widespread that few people read it as an error, and the Academy itself accepts that informal registers have their own conventions. But in a professional email, an academic paper, a contract or anything published, a missing opening mark reads as carelessness.
There is one case where skipping it is never acceptable: text someone else will read aloud — scripts, speeches, subtitles or teaching material. Without the initial cue the reader cannot adjust their intonation until the sentence is already over, which is precisely the problem the Academy set out to solve.
If you are preparing text for publication, you can clean the text of invisible characters, or do the opposite of adding diacritics and remove accents when the destination will not accept special characters.
Why Spanish is almost the only language that uses it
1754
The Real Academia Española recommended the inverted question mark in the second edition of its Ortografía de la lengua castellana, to mark where questions begin in written Spanish.
The proposal solved a practical problem. In Spanish, a question can have exactly the same word order as a statement, so without an initial marker there was no way to anticipate the intonation when reading aloud. The inverted mark removed that ambiguity at the source.
Adoption was slow: for more than a century texts appeared both with and without the opening sign, and it only became standard in the 19th century. Today it is systematically shared only by a handful of languages with cultural ties to Spain, such as Asturian and Waray. Portuguese, Catalan and Italian never adopted it.
In Unicode it sits at U+00BF, inside the Latin-1 Supplement block, immediately after the inverted exclamation mark at U+00A1. That technical detail explains why these signs can shrink your SMS limit: they force a change of encoding.
Common mistakes with inverted punctuation
The most common mistake for English speakers: dropping the opening mark. In Spanish it is not optional.
The mark does not go at the start of the sentence, but where the question actually begins.
The closing mark already ends the sentence, so no period is added after it.
In a run of short chained questions, each takes its own pair, separated by commas and continuing in lowercase.
If you are writing for social media, remember the mark takes up space too: check it with the character counter before you post.
Frequently asked questions
How do I type the upside down question mark on a US keyboard?
Is the opening mark really required in Spanish?
Why does my keyboard not have a ¿ key?
Can I type ¿ on my phone without adding a Spanish keyboard?
Do Portuguese, Catalan or Italian use it too?
What are the Unicode and HTML codes for the upside down question mark?
Where does ¿ go when the question starts mid-sentence?
Does ¿ count as a character on Twitter or in an SMS?
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