How to count fu, step by step
Fu (minipoints, fu in Japanese) measure how hard a hand was to build. They only matter for hands under five han, but there they can double the score, so it pays to count them carefully. The values below are the European Mahjong Association's, 2025 edition; the WRC Rules 2025 give the same totals.
- Start with 20 fu for winning. Seven pairs is the exception: it is worth exactly 25 fu, nothing is added and nothing is rounded, so you can stop there.
- Add the winning condition. A concealed hand (no called sets, though a concealed quad is fine) won on a discard gets 10 fu. A self-draw gets 2 fu, except in a pinfu hand.
- Add every triplet and quad. Sequences are worth nothing. Triplets and quads are worth more when concealed and more again when they are terminals (1s and 9s) or honours.
- Add 2 fu for a value pair: dragons, your seat wind or the round wind. A pair that is both your seat and the round wind is 2 fu in the 2025 EMA and WRC rules; the 2016 EMA rules and many clubs count 4.
- Add 2 fu for a difficult wait: an edge wait (1-2 waiting on 3, or 8-9 on 7), a closed wait (4-6 waiting on 5) or a pair wait (one tile waiting for its partner).
- Round up to the next 10. 32 fu becomes 40, and 22 becomes 30. An open hand that scores only the 20 base fu is counted as 30.
| Set | Called (open) | Concealed |
|---|---|---|
| Sequence | 0 | 0 |
| Triplet of simples (2-8) | 2 | 4 |
| Triplet of terminals or honours | 4 | 8 |
| Quad of simples | 8 | 16 |
| Quad of terminals or honours | 16 | 32 |
The traps
- Pinfu won by self-draw is 20 fu, not 30. Pinfu means a concealed hand of four sequences, a pair of no value and a two-sided wait. Won on a discard it is 30 fu (20 plus 10); won by self-draw the 2 fu for self-draw are dropped, so it stays at 20.
- An open hand never scores less than 30 fu. If you called a set and earned nothing beyond the 20 base fu, you get 2 more (the "open pinfu" rule) and round up to 30.
- Seven pairs is always 25 fu. A pair of dragons or a pair wait in a seven-pairs hand adds nothing.
- A triplet finished by a discard counts as open. If you waited on two pairs and won on someone's discard, the triplet you completed scores as a called triplet: 2 fu for simples instead of 4. Won by self-draw, it stays concealed.
- Read the hand the way that scores most. Holding 5-6-7-8-9 of one suit and winning on the 7, the hand reads either as 5-6-7 plus 8-9 finished at the edge (2 fu), or as 5-6 finished on one side plus 7-8-9 (no fu, but pinfu if the rest of the hand qualifies). The rules take the highest-scoring reading, as the EMA rulebook's own example shows.
- A concealed quad does not open your hand. You keep the 10 fu for a concealed ron and can still declare riichi.
Three worked examples
The example above. A concealed hand wins on a discard with a closed wait: a concealed triplet of 9 circles (8), a concealed triplet of 5 bamboo (4), two sequences, and a pair of red dragons (2). That is 20 + 10 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 2 for the closed wait = 46, rounded up to 50 fu. With 2 han, a non-dealer scores 50 × 24 = 800 base points, and the discarder pays 3,200.
An open all-simples hand. Chi 2-3-4 characters, then 5-6-7 circles, 4-5-6 bamboo, a pair of 3 circles, and 7-8 bamboo that wins on the 6 bamboo (a 9 would break all simples). Nothing scores fu beyond the 20 base, so the open pinfu rule adds 2 and the hand rounds to 30 fu: 1 han 30 fu, 1,000 points from the discarder.
The EMA rulebook's tenth example. A concealed half-flush hand self-draws a 7 circles: a concealed triplet of north wind (8), self-draw (2), and the 7 read as finishing 8-9 at the edge (2): 32, rounded up to 40 fu. With half flush (3 han) and fully concealed hand (1), 4 han 40 fu is a mangan.
From five han the fu no longer matter: every 5-han hand is a mangan whatever its fu. With kiriage mangan, in both 2025 rulebooks, 4 han 30 fu and 3 han 60 fu are also rounded up to mangan. To score a whole hand from its tiles, with yaku and payments, use the riichi score calculator.