The Tetum alphabet is used to write Tetum. It is based on the Latin alphabet and contains 24 letters:
| Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| width=3% align="center" | A | width=3% align="center" | B | width=3% align="center" | D | width=3% align="center" | E | width=3% align="center" | F | width=3% align="center" | G | width=3% align="center" | H | width=3% align="center" | I | width=3% align="center" | J | width=3% align="center" | K | width=3% align="center" | L | width=3% align="center" | M | width=3% align="center" | N | width=3% align="center" | Ñ | width=3% align="center" | O | width=3% align="center" | P | width=3% align="center" | R | width=3% align="center" | S | width=3% align="center" | T | width=3% align="center" | U | width=3% align="center" | V | width=3% align="center" | W | width=3% align="center" | X | width=3% align="center" | Z |
| Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | b | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | ñ | o | p | r | s | t | u | v | width=3% align="center" | w | x | z | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| International Phonetic Alphabet values | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| pronounced as /a/ | pronounced as /b/ | pronounced as /d/ | pronounced as /e/ | pronounced as /f/ | pronounced as /ɡ/ | pronounced as /h/ | pronounced as /i/ | pronounced as /ʒ/ | pronounced as /k/ | pronounced as /l/ | pronounced as /m/ | pronounced as /n/ | pronounced as /ɲ/ | pronounced as /o/ | pronounced as /p/ | pronounced as /ɾ/ | pronounced as /s/ | pronounced as /t/ | pronounced as /u/ | pronounced as /v/ | width=3% align="center" | pronounced as /w/ | pronounced as /ʃ/ | pronounced as /z/ | |||||||||||||||||||||||
The letters are named: Tetum: á, bé, dé, é, efe, ge, agá, í, jota, kapa, ele, eme, ene, ene ho til, ó, pé, erre, ese, té, ú, vé, vé-kaduak, xis, zé.
The accented letters á, é, í, ó, and ú are also used.
The letter W only occurs in some words of dialectal or foreign origin.
The letters G, J, Ñ, P, V, X, and Z and the digraphs LL (Tetum: ele-kaduak, /pronounced as /ʎ//) and RR (Tetum: erre-kaduak, /pronounced as /r//) only occur in loanwords.
The letters C (Tetum: sé), Q (Tetum: ké), and Y (Tetum: ípsilon) are not used in Tetum, except in foreign proper names and international symbols.
The apostrophe (Tetum: kapa-tatolan) is used to denote glottal stop.