How to round a number
- Type the number to round.
- Choose what to round to: a number of decimal places, or the nearest 10, 100 or 1,000.
- Read the result, with the four common rounding methods compared below it.
Rounding to tens, hundreds and thousands
Rounding to the nearest 10, 100 or 1,000 works the same way: look at the digit to the right of the place you keep. 1,234 to the nearest 100 is 1,200 because the tens digit is 3; 1,250 is 1,300 with ordinary rounding. Estimates, budgets and population figures are usually rounded like this.
When to use which method
- Half up is what most schools teach, and what people expect for prices and measurements.
- Half to even keeps averages unbiased when you round many values, so finance and statistics use it.
- Up suits quantities you can’t have part of: if a job needs 3.2 tins of paint, you buy 4.
- Down suits limits: 7.9 years of age counts as 7.