What is URL encoding?
URL encoding, or percent-encoding, replaces characters that are unsafe or reserved in a URL with a percent sign followed by two hexadecimal digits (e.g. a space becomes %20). It lets arbitrary text — spaces, symbols, non-ASCII characters — be safely included in URLs and query strings.
URLs may only contain a limited set of characters. Anything else — spaces, &, ?, / when used as data, or accented letters — is encoded as %XX where XX is the byte's hex value (UTF-8). For example café becomes caf%C3%A9.
It is essential for building query strings and form submissions so that reserved characters in your data are not misread as URL structure.
URL encoding tools
URL Encoder & Decoder
Encode and decode URLs and query string parameters. Percent-encoding for safe transmission.
Open toolBase64 Encoder & Decoder
Encode and decode Base64 text or files. Supports standard and URL-safe variants. Free, no signup.
Open toolHTML Entities Converter
Encode and decode HTML entities — named, decimal, and hex. 250+ HTML5 entities included.
Open toolURL Parser
Break a URL into scheme, credentials, host, port, path, query and hash. Percent-decoded query parameters in a live table.
Open toolFrequently asked questions
Why is a space encoded as %20?
Spaces are not allowed in URLs, so they are percent-encoded. 0x20 is the byte value of a space, hence %20 (in query strings it may also appear as +).
Is URL encoding the same as Base64?
No. URL encoding escapes unsafe characters in text; Base64 turns binary into text. They solve different problems.