How Many Characters Is a Text Message? SMS Limits Explained

Meta description: A standard text message holds 160 characters, but one emoji or curly quote drops the limit to 70. Here is how SMS encoding and segments work, with checked examples.

A standard text message holds 160 characters. That limit goes back to the early GSM standard in the 1980s, and it still shapes every SMS you send. The catch is that 160 only applies if every character in your message is on a short approved list. Add one character outside it, and the same message gets a limit of 70.

The two encodings behind every SMS

Encoding	When it’s used	Single message	Each segment of a longer message
GSM-7	The message contains only characters from the GSM-7 set	160 characters	153 characters
Unicode (UCS-2)	Any character outside GSM-7 appears	70 characters	67 characters

The choice is all-or-nothing and covers the entire message. One emoji in an otherwise plain text switches every character to Unicode.

What’s in GSM-7, and what isn’t

GSM-7 covers the basic Latin letters, digits and common punctuation, plus some accented letters. These are in the set: è, é, ù, ì, ò, Ç, É, Ñ, ñ, Ü, ü, Ö, ö, Ä, ä, à and ß. So “café” and “señor” cost nothing extra.

Characters that force Unicode include:

• Emoji
• Accented letters that aren’t in the list above, such as á, í, ó, ú, ç, ê and õ
• Curly “smart” quotes and apostrophes (’ “ ”), long dashes and ellipsis characters
• Any non-Latin script, such as Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek letters outside the GSM set, or Chinese, Japanese and Korean

One example, with counts checked:

“Gracias, señor Müller. Su pedido llegará mañana.”

This message is 48 characters. The ñ and ü are fine, but the á in “llegará” pushes the whole text into Unicode. Without it, the message would stay in GSM-7.

Here is another small example. “Don’t miss our sale. Ends Sunday. Reply STOP to opt out.” uses a straight apostrophe, so it’s GSM-7. Replace the apostrophe with a curly one (Don’t) and it becomes Unicode, with no visible change on screen.

Some GSM-7 characters count as two

A handful of characters are inside GSM-7 but use an escape code, so each counts as two characters: ^ { } \ [ ] ~ | €. For example, “Total: €5” is 9 characters on screen but counts as 10. “Total: $5” counts as 9. The € symbol is a classic way to run over a limit by accident.

What happens when you go over the limit

A message longer than one segment isn’t blocked. It is split into segments, and the recipient’s phone reassembles them into one text. But each segment reserves space for a small header that tells the phone how to put the pieces back together, so segments hold slightly less than a standalone message:

• GSM-7: 153 characters per segment
• Unicode: 67 characters per segment

So a 160-character GSM-7 message is one segment, but a 161-character one is two segments (153 plus 8). A 306-character message is two segments, and a 307-character one is three. Carriers typically bill each segment separately.

What one emoji does to your costs

Most emoji count as two characters in Unicode, and some (flags, skin-tone variants and combined emoji) can use more. Here are three checked examples:

• “Your order #4821 has shipped. Track it at example.com/track. Reply STOP to opt out.” is 83 characters, GSM-7, one segment.
• Add a 📦 emoji to the end and the message becomes Unicode, using 86 units, which is two segments.
• A full 160-character GSM-7 message plus one emoji uses 162 units in Unicode and becomes three segments.

So a single emoji can double or triple what a message costs, while the recipient still sees one text. In a large campaign, that’s a real amount of money.

Practical tips

1. Check the encoding, not only the length. A plain character count won’t tell you that your message just switched to Unicode. Look for a tool that shows both.
2. Watch for auto-formatting. Word processors, email tools and some CRMs swap straight quotes for curly ones. Paste your message into a plain-text editor before you send.
3. Use emoji deliberately. If a message is short enough to stay within 67 characters of Unicode, one emoji costs you nothing in segments. For longer messages, it usually costs more.
4. Plan non-English text separately. Most non-Latin scripts need Unicode, so plan for a 70-character limit from the start. Some carriers and providers support alternate “shift tables” for certain languages, so ask yours.
5. Keep € and brackets in mind. Each counts as two characters in GSM-7.

Billing rules and encodings differ between carriers and platforms, so check your provider’s documentation before you plan a campaign around exact numbers.

The 160-character limit isn’t going anywhere. But once you use any character outside the standard set, you are working with a very different budget.

Last updated: October 30, 2026.

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What I changed

• Fixed the accents claim. é and ñ stay in GSM-7. I replaced them with á, which does force Unicode, and used the Spanish sentence above to show that one á affects the whole message.
• Added the two-character symbols (€, brackets, braces, caret, backslash, tilde and pipe), which the original left out.
• Replaced the “100-character message” example. I used verified examples instead (83 characters becoming 2 segments, and 160 characters becoming 3).
• Softened “since the 1980s”, “typically billed” and the carrier claims, since they vary and I couldn’t verify them all.
• Corrected the cost claim. The old post said an emoji doubles cost. Depending on message length, it can double or triple it.

Before you publish: Add a screenshot of your counter flagging an encoding switch, if it does that. If it only counts characters, consider adding an encoding detector to your tool, since it would make this post original and useful. That is a real chance to improve the site, and I can help you write that feature.