Its or It's? Apostrophe Rules for Plurals and Possessives

"The company announced it's new policy." "Fresh banana's, two dollar's a bunch." "The Smith's are coming for dinner." Each of these has an apostrophe in the wrong place, and each one is the kind of slip that careful readers notice before they notice anything else in the sentence.

Apostrophes feel slippery because they are tiny, because the words around them sound identical with or without them, and because most of us were taught the rules once, around age ten, and never again. But the apostrophe has only two real jobs in modern English. Once you know those two jobs, nearly every case settles itself, including the one that catches everyone: its and it's.

Here you will get those two jobs, the plural and possessive rules side by side, the pronoun trap, the questions style guides disagree on, and a short way to make the right choice automatic.

The apostrophe does two jobs, and plurals are not one of them

An apostrophe shows either that letters are missing or that something belongs to someone. That is all. Missing letters: "it is" becomes "it's", "do not" becomes "don't", "they are" becomes "they're". Belonging: "the dog's bowl", "Maria's car", "the company's results".

Notice what is absent from that list. Plurals. A plain plural, meaning more than one of something, takes no apostrophe at all. One banana, two bananas. One dollar, ten dollars. One CEO, three CEOs. One 1990s haircut.

The stray apostrophe in "banana's" has a nickname in Britain, the greengrocer's apostrophe, after the hand-lettered signs in fruit and vegetable shops. It happens because the plural, the possessive and the plural possessive all sound the same in speech. "Bananas", "banana's" and "bananas'" are one sound with three spellings. Your ear cannot help, so the eye guesses.

The fix is a question you ask every time you write a word ending in s. Does this word own something, or have letters been left out? If neither, no apostrophe.

Its or it's: the one to learn first

This pair causes more apostrophe errors than any other, and the confusion is completely understandable. Everywhere else, the apostrophe shows possession: "the cat's tail". So it seems natural that the tail belonging to "it" should be "it's tail".

It is not. "It's" always means "it is" or "it has". "Its" is the possessive. "It's raining." "It's been a long week." "The cat licked its paw." "The company changed its name."

The reason is that "its" belongs to a family of possessive pronouns, and none of them take an apostrophe: his, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs, whose. You would never write "hi's book" or "your's truly", and "its" works the same way. The apostrophe in "it's" is doing its other job, standing in for the missing letters of "is" or "has".

Here is a check that works every time. Read the sentence aloud with "it is" in place of the word. "The company changed it is name" is nonsense, so the word is "its". "It is raining" makes sense, so the word is "it's". If "it has" works, as in "it's been ages", the apostrophe is right as well.

Oddly, the possessive was once written with an apostrophe. For a time in the 1600s and 1700s, "it's" was a normal way to write the possessive, and the apostrophe was dropped by the early 1800s. So if you write "it's" for the possessive, you are not being illogical. You are just about two hundred years behind the convention.

The same trap in other pairs

"Its" and "it's" are the best known example of a pattern that runs through English: a possessive pronoun that sounds like a contraction.

The same check works for all of them. Expand the contraction and see if the sentence still makes sense. "Who is coat is this?" fails, so it is "whose coat". "You are welcome" works, so it is "you're welcome". The wider family of sound-alike words, including there, their and they're, is covered in our guide to homophones.

Singular possessive: add 's

For one owner, add an apostrophe and an s. The dog's bowl. My sister's apartment. Today's meeting. The manager's decision. This holds even when the word ends in a letter that sounds like s, such as "the boss's office" or "the box's lid".

It also holds for nouns that are already plural without an s. Children, people, men, women and mice are plural, but they do not end in s, so they take 's just like a singular word: the children's books, people's opinions, the women's team. "Childrens' " is a common error, and the fix is to remember that "children" already means more than one. You are only adding the possessive.

Plural possessive: add the apostrophe after the s

When the owners are plural and the plural ends in s, add only an apostrophe after it. One dog's bowls means one dog; two dogs' bowls means two dogs. The teachers' lounge belongs to many teachers. The Smiths' house belongs to the whole Smith family.

The way to get this right is to build it in two steps. First write the plural, without thinking about possession at all. Then decide whether it owns something. If it does and the plural ends in s, put the apostrophe after that s.

That last pair causes trouble at holiday time. A card signed "The Smith's" is saying "the Smith is" or "belonging to Smith". The family is "the Smiths", no apostrophe. For names ending in s, the plural adds -es, so the Jones family is "the Joneses" and their house is "the Joneses' house". It looks strange because we rarely see it written, but it follows the rule. Irregular plurals like this are covered in more depth in our guide to plurals.

James's or James': where the guides disagree

This is the one apostrophe question with two acceptable answers.

For a singular name that ends in s, such as James, Chris or Dickens, the major style guides differ. The Chicago Manual of Style, used widely in American book publishing, recommends adding 's: James's car, Dickens's novels. The Associated Press Stylebook, used by many American newspapers, recommends adding only the apostrophe to proper names that end in s: James' car, Dickens' novels.

Both are correct within their system. A useful guide is pronunciation: if you would say an extra "iz" sound, "James-iz car", write 's. If you work for a newspaper, a publisher or a company with a house style, follow it. If you have no style to follow, pick one approach and use it consistently throughout a document. Inconsistency is the only real error here.

Two more quiet rules. When two people share one thing, only the last name takes the possessive: "Ana and Raj's wedding". When each owns a separate thing, both do: "Ana's and Raj's passports". And decades take no apostrophe before the s: the 1990s, the '80s if you shorten them, with the apostrophe standing in for the missing "19".

Plurals of letters, numbers and abbreviations

Modern style guides agree that numbers and abbreviations form plurals without an apostrophe: the 1970s, three PDFs, two MBAs, all the FAQs. Writing "PDF's" for more than one PDF is the greengrocer's apostrophe in a business suit.

Single lowercase letters are the one place where an apostrophe in a plural is still widely accepted, because without it the result can be unreadable. "Mind your p's and q's" and "dot your i's" are standard, since "is" and "ps" would be confusing. This is a narrow exception for clarity, not permission to use apostrophes in plurals generally.

Contractions: the apostrophe goes where the letters were

The first job, marking missing letters, has its own small traps. The rule is precise: the apostrophe sits exactly where the letters were removed, not where the two words join. "Do not" loses the o of "not", so it becomes "don't", never "do'nt". "Should not" becomes "shouldn't", "is not" becomes "isn't", and "they are" becomes "they're".

A few contractions are irregular. "Will not" becomes "won't", a survival from an older form of "will", and "cannot" becomes "can't". You do not need to know the history to spell them, only to notice that the apostrophe still marks the place of the dropped "no".

Then there is "let's" against "lets". "Let's go" is short for "let us go", so it takes an apostrophe. "She lets the dog out" is the ordinary verb "let" with an s, so it does not. The expand-it check settles it: if "let us" fits, write "let's".

One mistake is not about apostrophes at all, but grows from them. "Would've", "could've" and "should've" are contractions of "would have", "could have" and "should have". In speech they sound like "would of", and that is how they are often written. "Would of" is always wrong. If you are unsure, write the full form, "would have", which is never wrong in any register.

How to stop making these mistakes

Most apostrophe errors are not caused by not knowing the rule. People who write "it's" for the possessive can usually explain the rule perfectly when asked. The error happens at writing speed, when the hand types the familiar shape and the brain is busy with what the sentence means.

Spell-checkers help less than you would hope here. "Its" and "it's" are both real words, so a checker that looks only at individual words has nothing to flag. Grammar checkers catch some cases and miss others. We look at the wider problem in why spell-check and autocorrect are making your spelling worse.

What does help is a habit, practiced until it runs on its own. For a week, every time you write "its" or "it's", pause and say "it is" in your head. Do the same with "your" and "whose". Research on retrieval practice, including work by Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke, shows that actively producing an answer strengthens memory far more than reading it again. Each deliberate pause is a small retrieval, and after a few dozen of them, the right choice stops requiring a pause.

The second habit is a final proofreading pass that looks only for apostrophes. Search your document for "'s" and "s'" and check each one with the two-jobs question. It takes a minute and catches the mistakes that matter most.

What to do next

Write five sentences of your own using its, it's, whose, who's and your. Then write three possessives: one singular, one plural ending in s, and one plural like "children". Check each against the two jobs, missing letters or belonging. Do it again tomorrow, with new sentences and no notes.

If apostrophes are one of several things you want to tighten up, the list of spelling mistakes that make you look unprofessional at work is a good next stop, and a few minutes a day on Spelling.School will steadily work through the words themselves.

Questions people ask

When do you use its and when do you use it's?

Use "it's" only when you mean "it is" or "it has", as in "it's raining" or "it's been a week". Use "its" for possession, as in "the dog wagged its tail". A simple check is to replace the word with "it is": if the sentence still makes sense, write "it's", and if it does not, write "its".

Why doesn't its have an apostrophe when it shows possession?

"Its" belongs to the possessive pronouns, along with his, hers, ours, yours, theirs and whose, and none of these take an apostrophe. The apostrophe in "it's" shows that letters have been left out of "it is" or "it has". The possessive was written "it's" for a time in the 1600s and 1700s, but the apostrophe was dropped by the early 1800s.

Do you put an apostrophe in a plural?

No. Ordinary plurals never take an apostrophe, so you write bananas, dollars, CEOs and the 1990s. Apostrophes show either possession or missing letters. The one widely accepted exception is the plural of single lowercase letters, such as "mind your p's and q's", where the apostrophe prevents confusion.

Is it the Smith's or the Smiths?

The family name as a plural is "the Smiths", with no apostrophe. If you mean something that belongs to the family, add an apostrophe after the s: "the Smiths' house". "The Smith's" would mean something belonging to one person called Smith, so it is wrong on a card signed by the whole family.

Is it James's or James'?

Both are accepted, and style guides disagree. The Chicago Manual of Style recommends "James's", while the Associated Press Stylebook recommends "James'" for proper names ending in s. Follow the style your workplace or publication uses, and if you have none, choose one form and use it consistently.

Is it childrens or children's?

The correct form is "children's", as in "children's books". "Children" is already plural, so you add the possessive apostrophe and s just as you would for a singular word. The same applies to other plurals that do not end in s, such as "people's", "women's" and "men's".

Fix the words you actually get wrong

A few minutes a day, spaced repetition, built only for spelling. Try five words without signing up.