it's vs its, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“it's” is a contraction and “its” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,360
“it's” frequency rank: #18,002
“its” frequency rank: 28362
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	it's	its
Definition	Contracción de el pronombre it ("ello") y el verbo is ("es").	Su, sus; que pertenece a un animal o una cosa.

Same sound, different letters: it's vs its

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

4 ch

it's

3 ch

its

Homophone desk: it's vs its

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: it's and its carry the same recorded pronunciation, /ɪts/. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is acontraction, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28362, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

it's is recorded at frequency rank #10,360, classified as acontraction, pronounced /ɪts/. its is at rank #18,002, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɪts/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 28362, this pair ranks #222,409 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of it's vs its

Shared letters: ist. Private to "it's": -. Private to "its": -.

"it's" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "its" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "it's" for "its" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "it's" is a contraction and "its" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "it's" vs "its" - which ranks higher?

"it's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,360 in our Spanish list, against #18,002 for "its". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

Full dictionary entry for "it's" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "its" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #222,409 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"it's" and "its" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "its vs iza". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #222,409 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.