It’s easy to convert a fraction to a percentage. If you don’t want to do it by hand, you can use long division or even your calculator to get the job done. Once you’ve mastered the technique in this article, you’ll be able to simply switch between fractions and percentages.
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Converting Fractions to Percent
What is a percentage?
The word percent simply means out of a hundred. Percentages, like fractions and decimals, are used in mathematics to describe components of a whole. When converting decimals into percentages, remember that the percentage cannot be above 100 or below 0. To show that a number is a percentage, the symbol % is used.
Percentages can be found practically anywhere: in stores, on the internet, in commercials, and in the news. Understanding what percentages mean is a crucial skill that can save you time and money while also increasing your employability.
How to convert a fraction to a percentage
Simply follow this:
Remember that a percent is simply a unique way of expressing a fraction as a number between 1 and 100.
Divide the numerator by the denominator to convert a fraction to a percent. The decimal is then multiplied by 100. Essentially, we are converting the fraction to a decimal, and then converting a decimal to a percentage.
Take this fraction of 4/8
There are two ways to convert to percentages:
Method 1: Simplification
4/8 can be simplified to 1/2, or half, which is 50%.
The simplification method is useful to simplify complex fractions into more manageable ones. The following are examples of fractions with their simplified versions and converted fractions:
- 12/60 can be simplified into 1/5 which, converted, is 20%
- 60/180 can be simplified to 1/3 which, converted, is 33.3%
- 1258/12580 can be simplified to 1/10 which, converted, is 10%
Method 2: Long Division
Most fractions that you will need to convert won’t be as easily simplified. Long division is your solution as you must convert the fraction to a decimal first.
Take a look at the fraction 3/4. This can be represented as 3 ÷ 4 by dividing the numerator by the denominator. To do this without a calculator, you’ll have to use long division and put your wits to the test.
- Step 1: Place the denominator outside the division bracket (to the left) and the numerator inside the division bracket to begin the long division equation (to the right).
- Step 2: When working with fractions, your result will be less than 1 if the numerator (3) is smaller than the denominator (4). As a result, write a 0 above the 3.
- Step 3: Things become a little complicated because we can’t divide 3 by 4. You can carry the 3 over and omit the decimal point once Step 2 is completed. In other words, the 3.0 can be considered as 30 because 7 x 4 = 28, and 28 is the divisible by 4 nearest whole number to 30. Write 7 above the first 0 (tenths) and 28 beneath the 3.0.
- Step 4: You could be thinking, “But 28 isn’t 30.” What are we going to do with the other two? This continues to the following 0 (hundredths), which can be treated as 20. As 4×5=20, 20 is divisible by four. As a result, put 5 above the second 0 (hundredths). The long divisor is 20 since it is divisible and has no remainder.
This is how it looks on paper:
0.75
4) 3.00
– 2 8
20
0
What is 7/8 as a percentage?
Firstly, let us convert the fraction to a decimal:
0.875
8)7.000
6 4
56
40
0
The decimal we have is 0.875, but what is that as a percentage?
As we know, ‘percent’ means ‘per – cent’, or per 100. Therefore, if we multiply 0.875 by 100, we will get our percentage value.
This is 87.5%
Fraction to percent conversion table
A table of widely used values in percent, decimal, and fraction form is shown below:
| Percentage | Decimal | Fraction |
| 1% | 0.01 | 1/100 |
| 5% | 0.05 | .1/20 |
| 10% | 0.1 | 1/10 |
| 12.5% | 0.125 | 1/8 |
| 20% | 0.2 | 1/5 |
| 25% | 0.25 | ¼ |
| 33.3% | 0.333 | 1/3 |
| 50% | 0.5 | 1/2 |
| 75% | 0.75 | 3/4 |
Need more help?
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