CSV Delimiters: Comma, Semicolon, or Tab?
Despite the name, "comma-separated values" files don't always use commas. Excel installations in much of Europe — Germany, France, Spain, Italy — default to **semicolon** as the delimiter because comma is the decimal separator (1,5 instead of 1.5). Knowing your audience's locale is the difference between a clean import and a single-column mess.
When to use each delimiter
- Comma (,) — default everywhere. Safe for US/UK/AU/CA/IN audiences and all programmatic consumers.
- Semicolon (;) — German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch Excel installations. Often the safest pick for B2B Europe.
- Tab (\t) — when values contain both commas and semicolons (addresses, prose). Saves you from heavy quoting; the file extension is usually
.tsv.
- Pipe (|) — legacy systems and some logging pipelines. Rarely needed today.
Force Excel to use a specific delimiter
Add a sep= hint as the very first line of the file: sep=;. Excel reads this line and uses the delimiter you specified instead of the system default. The hint line isn't standard CSV — strip it before feeding to scripts or databases.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know which delimiter a CSV uses?
Open it in a text editor and look at the first line. If you see consistent commas, semicolons, or tabs between fields, that's the delimiter.
Can I mix delimiters in one file?
No — pick one. Use the chosen delimiter consistently and quote any fields that contain it.