URL Encoder
Percent-encode a string for safe use in URLs. Free, instant, no signup.
How to use this tool
- Enter text to url-encode in the fields above.
- Results update instantly as you type — or click Calculate.
- Read your url-encoded and the full breakdown beneath it.
URL encoding (percent-encoding) replaces unsafe ASCII characters with a '%' followed by two hex digits, making strings safe to embed in URLs.
How it works
This tool percent-encodes a string so it can be safely included in a URL. URLs can only contain a limited set of ASCII characters. Any character outside that set (spaces, accented letters, special symbols, non-Latin scripts) must be replaced with a percent sign followed by the character's hexadecimal byte value -- for example, a space becomes %20 and the ampersand becomes %26.
Type or paste the text you want to encode and click Encode. The tool converts each character that is not URL-safe into its percent-encoded equivalent and leaves safe characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, hyphen, underscore, period, tilde) as-is. The output is ready to use in a query string, form post, or API parameter value.
URL encoding is required whenever you construct URLs programmatically, pass user-provided text as a query parameter, or embed data containing reserved URL characters (/, ?, =, &, #, +) in a link. Without encoding, these characters would be misinterpreted as URL structure.
This tool encodes the entire input as a component value (suitable for a single parameter or path segment). If you are building a full URL with multiple parameters, encode each parameter value individually, then join them with literal = and & signs.
Worked example
Encode a search query for a URL
- Type the search term: coffee & tea prices 2025
- Click Encode
- Copy the result: coffee%20%26%20tea%20prices%202025
- Append to the URL: https://example.com/search?q=coffee%20%26%20tea%20prices%202025
coffee%20%26%20tea%20prices%202025
Common mistakes to avoid
- Encoding the entire URL including the protocol and slashes, which breaks the URL structure.
- Double-encoding a value that was already encoded, turning %20 into %2520.
- Using + for spaces in a REST API URL -- use %20 instead; + is only correct in HTML form data.
Key terms
- Percent-encoding
- A URL encoding mechanism that replaces unsafe characters with a percent sign followed by two hexadecimal digits representing the character's UTF-8 byte value.
- Reserved characters
- Characters that have special meaning in URLs (such as /, ?, =, &, #) and must be percent-encoded when used as literal data in a URL component.
- URL component
- A distinct part of a URL such as the path, query string, or fragment. Each component has its own rules about which characters must be encoded.
Frequently asked questions
- What is URL encoding?
- URL encoding converts characters that are not allowed in a URL into a percent-encoded format, e.g. a space becomes %20.