Roman Numerals Chart and Rules

Roman numerals don’t actually take long to learn — there are only seven symbols and two rules. But the conventions are inconsistent enough (especially on clocks and tattoos) that even people who memorized them in school routinely get them wrong. This is a quick reference, plus the converter for when you need a specific year, birthday, or chapter number.

The seven symbols

Symbol	Value
I	1
V	5
X	10
L	50
C	100
D	500
M	1,000

That’s it. Every Roman numeral is some combination of these seven letters.

The two rules

Rule 1: Addition. Symbols of the same or smaller value placed after a larger one are added.

• VI = 5 + 1 = 6
• XIII = 10 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 13
• MMXXIV = 1000 + 1000 + 10 + 10 + 4 = 2024

Rule 2: Subtraction. A smaller symbol placed before a larger one is subtracted.

• IV = 5 − 1 = 4
• IX = 10 − 1 = 9
• XL = 50 − 10 = 40
• XC = 100 − 10 = 90
• CD = 500 − 100 = 400
• CM = 1000 − 100 = 900

Only those six subtractive pairs are valid: IV, IX, XL, XC, CD, CM. You can’t write 99 as IC (it must be XCIX), and you can’t write 999 as IM (it must be CMXCIX). The subtractive rule applies only one place value down — so you can subtract I from V or X, X from L or C, C from D or M. Anything else is wrong.

The chart (1–100)

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1–9	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	IX
10–19	X	XI	XII	XIII	XIV	XV	XVI	XVII	XVIII
20–29	XX	XXI	XXII	XXIII	XXIV	XXV	XXVI	XXVII	XXVIII
30–39	XXX	XXXI	XXXII	XXXIII	XXXIV	XXXV	XXXVI	XXXVII	XXXVIII
40–49	XL	XLI	XLII	XLIII	XLIV	XLV	XLVI	XLVII	XLVIII
50–59	L	LI	LII	LIII	LIV	LV	LVI	LVII	LVIII
60–69	LX	LXI	LXII	LXIII	LXIV	LXV	LXVI	LXVII	LXVIII
70–79	LXX	LXXI	LXXII	LXXIII	LXXIV	LXXV	LXXVI	LXXVII	LXXVIII
80–89	LXXX	LXXXI	LXXXII	LXXXIII	LXXXIV	LXXXV	LXXXVI	LXXXVII	LXXXVIII
90–99	XC	XCI	XCII	XCIII	XCIV	XCV	XCVI	XCVII	XCVIII
100	C

For any number above 100, build it left-to-right from the largest place value: hundreds, then tens, then ones. 387 = CCC (300) + LXXX (80) + VII (7) = CCCLXXXVII.

Common years in Roman numerals

Year	Roman	Year	Roman
1066	MLXVI	2000	MM
1492	MCDXCII	2010	MMX
1776	MDCCLXXVI	2020	MMXX
1900	MCM	2023	MMXXIII
1999	MCMXCIX	2024	MMXXIV
2001	MMI	2025	MMXXV
2008	MMVIII	2026	MMXXVI

For any year between 1 and 3999, the Roman numerals converter returns the answer instantly along with a breakdown showing which part is which.

Roman numerals for birthdays and tattoos

A common use for Roman numerals is on tattoos — a birthday, anniversary, or significant date written in classical numerals. The format that looks cleanest:

DD · MM · YYYY

For example, March 14, 1999 becomes:

XIV · III · MCMXCIX

Using middle-dot separators (·) is more elegant than slashes or hyphens. American month-day-year order becomes III · XIV · MCMXCIX if you prefer that convention.

Before getting one inked: triple-check the math. The most common tattoo error is rendering 1999 as MIM (incorrect — only one subtractive step is allowed) instead of MCMXCIX (correct). Pop the date into a Roman numerals converter and verify against the breakdown — much cheaper than laser removal.

Where you actually see Roman numerals

• Book chapters and outlines. “Chapter IV,” “Section II.a.iii”
• Movie sequels. “Rocky IV,” “Star Wars Episode IX”
• Super Bowl numbering. “Super Bowl LVIII” (58)
• Monarchs and popes. “Henry VIII,” “Pope John Paul II”
• Clock and watch faces. Often using IIII instead of IV (see below)
• Copyright years on films and broadcasts (legal padding to make alteration harder)
• Architectural cornerstones (the year a building was finished)
• Annual events (“the XXII Olympic Winter Games”)

The IIII vs IV thing on clocks

If you look at a clock with Roman numeral faces, the 4 is almost always written as IIII, not IV. This isn’t a mistake — it’s a tradition. Theories vary: it makes the dial more visually symmetric (IIII balances VIII across the face), it avoids confusion at certain angles, or it’s a holdover from medieval superstition about subtracting from “IV” which were the first letters of “IVPITER” (Jupiter) in classical Latin.

On a clock, IIII is correct. Anywhere else, IIII is wrong.

Common mistakes (avoid these)

1. MIM instead of MCMXCIX for 1999. Subtractive rule only applies one place value down. M (1000) minus I (1) isn’t allowed — it must be M (1000) + CM (900) + XC (90) + IX (9) = MCMXCIX.

2. VL for 45. L (50) minus V (5) is not a valid subtractive pair. Use XLV instead (XL + V = 40 + 5).

3. IIII outside a clock. Anywhere except a clock face, four is IV.

4. Mixing modern Arabic digits with Roman. “XXI century” is correct. “21st century” is correct. “21XX” or “MMI21” is not.

5. Adding “0” or “00.” Roman numerals have no zero. 2000 is MM, not MM0 or MMO.

6. Lowercase for important uses. Lowercase Roman numerals (i, ii, iii) are used for things like page-number prefaces (i, ii, iii, iv before page 1), but copyright years and titles are always uppercase.

Why there’s no zero

The Roman numeral system is essentially a tally — you write a quantity by listing its symbols. There’s no need for “zero” because you simply don’t write anything when you have nothing. The concept of zero as a numeric placeholder developed later (historians trace early systematic treatment to South Asia) and reached Europe through Arabic translations around the 9th–13th centuries. By then Romans had been gone for centuries, and the numerical system that replaced them (Arabic numerals) brought zero with it. That’s why our modern math uses 0–9, not Roman symbols.

The upper limit

Standard Roman numerals top out at 3,999 (MMMCMXCIX). Beyond that, classical notation uses a vinculum — a bar over a letter to multiply by 1000. V̄ = 5,000, X̄ = 10,000, and so on. Almost nobody uses vinculum notation outside historical or specialized contexts, which is why most converters (including ours) cap at 3,999.