Parts of a Check – Personal and Business Check Labeled

All 12 parts on the diagram

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Personal check 11

Payer's name and address Whose account pays: printed at the top left.
Bank name The bank that holds the account and pays the check.
Check number Numbers the checks in order, for record keeping.
Date line The day the check is written.
Payee line The person or business to be paid.
Amount box The amount in numerals, such as 25.00.
Written amount The same amount in words, with the cents over 100.
Memo line An optional note on what the check is for.
Signature line The account holder signs here.
Routing number The number that identifies the bank.
Account number The number of the account the money comes from.

Business check 1

Stub Torn off and kept as a record of the check.

How this list was compiled: Read 2026-09-30, for the names of the parts only; nothing was copied. (1) Chase, How to Write a Check: A Guide, https://www.chase.com/personal/banking/education/basics/how-to-write-a-check. (2) Sherri M. Butterfield, First Steps to Personal Money Management, BANK-ED I (1980), an ERIC document, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153452_0310. (3) Practical Math: A Reference Guide and Problem Sets (K12 Inc., 2014), https://archive.org/details/practicalmathref0000k12p. (4) Wikipedia, Cheque, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque, and Magnetic ink character recognition. (5) Oklahoma State Department of Vocational and Technical Education, Introduction to Financial Services, Teacher Edition (1989), an ERIC document, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152957_0269. Every part asked is named by at least two of them. Licence: own work

The drawing: Drawn for this site on 2026-09-30. Own work: both specimens, every name and every number are invented, and no real bank's check was copied. Licence: own work

How it works

The parts of a check are the payer's name and address, bank name, check number, date line, payee line, amount box, written amount, memo line, signature line, routing number and account number. Name each on a specimen.

Read the full guide

Parts of a check labeled, top to bottom

The payer's name and address are printed top left, with the check number and the date line top right. In the middle, the payee line follows the words Pay to the order of, the amount box holds the numerals and the line under it holds the amount in words. The memo line and the signature line come next, and the routing number and account number run along the bottom.

Parts of a business check

The second specimen is a business check. It has the same parts, with a company as the payer and two signature lines, and a stub below the dotted line that is torn off and kept as a record. To label parts of a check on paper, print either specimen blank.

On these specimens the routing number is the first number along the bottom and the account number is the second.

Questions and answers

What are the parts of a check?

A check shows the payer's name and address, the bank's name, a check number, the date, the payee, the amount in numerals and in words, an optional memo, the payer's signature, and the routing number and account number along the bottom.

Where are the routing number and account number on a check?

Both are printed along the bottom edge of the check in machine-readable characters. The routing number identifies the bank, and the account number identifies the account the money comes from.

Who are the payer and the payee?

The payer is the person or business whose account the money comes from, and the payer signs the check. The payee is the person or business named on the Pay to the order of line, who is paid.

Are these real checks?

No. Both are specimens drawn for this page, with SPECIMEN printed across them. The people, the company, the bank and every number are invented, and the page is for learning the names of the parts only.