Converting Percents to Decimals

To convert a percent to a decimal, we do the opposite of converting a decimal into a percent; instead of multiplying by 100, divide by 100. We can also simply move the decimal point two places to the left.

Let's bust out a visual aid, shall we? 75% represents 75 parts out of 100. We also know that "75 hundredths" represents the decimal 0.75, so they're one and the same.

75 % graph representation

All we did was move the decimal point at the end of 75% two spots to the left to get 0.75.

Here's one more example. To turn 90% into a decimal, pull the decimal point two spots to the left. It's currently invisible, hiding to the right of the zero.

Now we can see that 90% is the alter-ego of 0.9.

Need more examples? Here ya go:

21% = 0.21

267% = 2.67

5% = 0.05