5-Band Resistor Color Code

Precision resistors carry five bands instead of four: three significant digits, a multiplier and the tolerance. Every selector on this page lists the colours in the page language alongside the number each one carries, so you do not need the table memorised to use it. The default selection shows how it works: brown, black and black make 100, the red multiplier is 100, and the brown tolerance band means 1%. The result is 10 kΩ ±1%, and right below it comes the number that actually matters at the bench — anywhere from 9.9 kΩ to 10.1 kΩ is a part within specification. The drawing of the five bands on a beige body helps you confirm you read the component in the right direction.

The tables follow IEC 60062. Digits run black 0, brown 1, red 2, orange 3, yellow 4, green 5, blue 6, violet 7, gray 8, white 9. The multiplier reuses those colours as powers of ten, from black (×1) up to white (×10⁹), and adds gold (×0.1) and silver (×0.01) for low values — that is how a 47 Ω part becomes yellow, violet, black and gold. Tolerance has its own table: brown 1%, red 2%, green 0.5%, blue 0.25%, violet 0.1%, gray 0.05%, gold 5% and silver 10%. That third digit is exactly what the extra band buys you. Two digits cover the E24 series behind 5% parts well enough; the E96 and E192 series behind 1% and 0.1% parts simply cannot be expressed without three.

Two reading traps are worth flagging. The first is direction: the tolerance band usually sits slightly apart from the rest, but when that is not obvious, decode the component both ways and throw away the value that belongs to no commercial series. The second is confusing nominal with measured. The colour code never tells you what the resistor measures; it tells you the nominal value and the promise of how far from it the part may sit. A 10 kΩ 1% resistor reading 10.07 kΩ on the meter is fine. This page decodes any combination you assemble, including ones no manufacturer sells — so if the value that came out does not exist in a catalogue, the reading is almost certainly what went wrong.