Resistor colour code calculator
Pick the colour of each band to read a through-hole resistor's value, or type a value to see the bands it carries. The colours are those of IEC 60062, the standard the makers follow.
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4.7 kΩ
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- guide.resistor.colours.yellowguide.resistor.roles.digit1: 4
- guide.resistor.colours.violetguide.resistor.roles.digit2: 7
- guide.resistor.colours.redguide.resistor.roles.multiplier: × 100
- guide.resistor.colours.goldguide.resistor.roles.tolerance: guide.resistor.meaning.tolerance
How to read the bands
Hold the resistor with the tolerance band on the right: usually gold or silver, and often set a little apart from the others. Read from the left. On a four-band resistor the first two bands are figures; on a five- or six-band resistor the first three are. The next band is the multiplier, the one after it the tolerance, and a sixth band is the temperature coefficient.
A resistor with three bands has two figures and a multiplier and no tolerance band, which means ±20%. Yellow, violet, red, gold reads 4, 7, × 100, ±5%: 4.7 kΩ.
Gold and silver as the multiplier
Values under 10 Ω put gold (× 0.1) or silver (× 0.01) where the multiplier goes: yellow, violet, gold is 4.7 Ω, and red, red, silver is 0.22 Ω.
Gold or silver is never the first band. If you see one first, you are reading from the wrong end; the calculator offers the reading from the other end.
The colour code
What each colour means in each place, as IEC 60062 gives it.
| Colour | Figure | Multiplier | Tolerance | Temperature coefficient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black | 0 | × 1 | – | 250 ppm/K |
| Brown | 1 | × 10 | ±1% | 100 ppm/K |
| Red | 2 | × 100 | ±2% | 50 ppm/K |
| Orange | 3 | × 1k | ±0.05% | 15 ppm/K |
| Yellow | 4 | × 10k | ±0.02% | 25 ppm/K |
| Green | 5 | × 100k | ±0.5% | 20 ppm/K |
| Blue | 6 | × 1M | ±0.25% | 10 ppm/K |
| Violet | 7 | × 10M | ±0.1% | 5 ppm/K |
| Grey | 8 | × 100M | ±0.01% | 1 ppm/K |
| White | 9 | × 1G | – | – |
| Gold | – | × 0.1 | ±5% | – |
| Silver | – | × 0.01 | ±10% | – |
| Pink | – | × 0.001 | – | – |
With no tolerance band the tolerance is ±20%. Older parts used grey for ±0.05%. Pink, × 0.001, is rare.
Zero-ohm links
A single black band is a zero-ohm link: a jumper in a resistor body, used to bridge a track or select an option. It reads under an ohm, and it is not a failed part.
Check it with a meter
Lift one end and measure it. A good resistor reads its value within its tolerance. Measured on the board, the meter also reads everything connected across it, which almost always reads lower, so a reading well above the value on the board is a fault.
Heat darkens the bands, and brown, red and orange are then easy to confuse. When the bands of a burnt resistor cannot be read, the same position on a working board, or the circuit's service manual, gives the value.
SMD resistors and capacitors
Chip resistors print a code instead of bands: 103 is 10 kΩ and 4R7 is 4.7 Ω. Type it into the search to read it. Capacitors and inductors have codes too: see the capacitor code calculator.