%26 is the URL-encoded ampersand (&).
In a URL, %26 stands for the ampersand (&). Here is when to encode it, what it does in each part of a URL, and what every major language outputs.
Quick facts
| Character | & |
|---|---|
| Name | Ampersand |
| Unicode | U+0026 |
| UTF-8 bytes | 26 (1 byte) |
| Percent-encoded | %26 |
| Lowercase form | %26 — identical meaning |
| Double-encoded | %2526 |
| HTML form encoding | %26 |
| RFC 3986 class | Reserved — sub-delimiter |
| HTML entity | & |
What it means in a URL
The ampersand separates query parameters, so a=1&b=2 is two parameters. A literal & inside a value — “Tom & Jerry”, “R&D” — must be encoded as %26 or the value is cut off there.
RFC 3986 class: Reserved — sub-delimiter. RFC 3986 allows it raw in paths and queries, but some schemes and servers give it meaning, so encoding it as data is the safe choice.
When to encode it
| Where it appears | What to do |
|---|---|
| Path segment | Allowed raw (encoding is also fine) |
| Query value | Encode — it separates parameters |
| Fragment | Allowed raw |
| Form body | Encode |
The mistake to watch for
Forgetting to encode it in a value, so q=Tom&Jerry arrives as q=Tom plus a stray parameter Jerry. (In HTML source the separator itself is also written &.)
What each language produces
Left as-is by JavaScript encodeURI(s), Go url.PathEscape(s); every other function in the table encodes it. Output for the single character, UTF-8 input, tested against the real runtimes (see the encoding comparator for your own strings).
| Function | Output | |
|---|---|---|
| JavaScript encodeURIComponent(s) | %26 | encoded |
| JavaScript encodeURI(s) | & | kept |
| JavaScript URLSearchParams | %26 | encoded |
| Python urllib.parse.quote(s) | %26 | encoded |
| Python quote(s, safe="") | %26 | encoded |
| Python urllib.parse.quote_plus(s) | %26 | encoded |
| PHP rawurlencode($s) | %26 | encoded |
| PHP urlencode($s) | %26 | encoded |
| Java URLEncoder.encode(s, UTF_8) | %26 | encoded |
| Go url.QueryEscape(s) | %26 | encoded |
| Go url.PathEscape(s) | & | kept |
| Ruby URI.encode_www_form_component(s) | %26 | encoded |
| Ruby ERB::Util.url_encode(s) | %26 | encoded |
| C# / .NET Uri.EscapeDataString(s) | %26 | encoded |
Decoding it
decodeURIComponent('%26') returns the ampersand (&). Python: urllib.parse.unquote('%26'); PHP: rawurldecode('%26'). Paste any string into the URL decoder to decode it in your browser.
← %25 Percent sign · Full URL encoding table · %27 Apostrophe (single quote) →
Common questions.
%26 is the percent-encoded form of the ampersand (&), whose byte value is 0x26. Decoding the URL turns it back into the character.
Yes. Hex digits in percent-encoding are case-insensitive, so %26 and %26 mean the same thing. RFC 3986 recommends uppercase, and mixing cases can make caches and analytics count one URL as two.
Use your language’s encoder on the value: encodeURIComponent in JavaScript gives %26, Python’s quote(s, safe="") gives %26, PHP’s rawurlencode gives %26.
More from the toolkit.
About this page. Written and maintained by Sri Murugan Systems, the developer of urlencodedecode.com. Character classes follow RFC 3986 §2; language outputs were generated by running each function in its real runtime.