The elementary charge, usually denoted by e, is a fundamental physical constant, defined as the electric charge carried by a single proton (+1 e) or, equivalently, the magnitude of the negative electric charge carried by a single electron, which has charge −1 e.

In SI units, the coulomb is defined such that the value of the elementary charge is exactly e = 1.602176634×10⁻¹⁹ C‍ or 160.2176634 zeptocoulombs (zC). Since the 2019 revision of the SI, the seven SI base units are defined in terms of seven fundamental physical constants, of which the elementary charge is one.

In the centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS), the corresponding quantity is 4.8032047...×10⁻¹⁰ statcoulombs.

Robert A. Millikan and Harvey Fletcher's oil drop experiment first directly measured the magnitude of the elementary charge in 1909, differing from the modern accepted value by just 0.6%. Under assumptions of the then-disputed atomic theory, the elementary charge had also been indirectly inferred to ~3% accuracy from blackbody spectra by Max Planck in 1901 and (through the Faraday constant) at order-of-magnitude accuracy by Johann Loschmidt's measurement of the Avogadro constant in 1865.

In some natural unit systems, such as the system of atomic units, e functions as the unit of electric charge. The use of elementary charge as a unit was promoted by George Johnstone Stoney in 1874 for the first system of natural units, called Stoney units. Later, he proposed the name electron for this unit. At the time, the particle we now call the electron was not yet discovered and the difference between the particle electron and the unit of charge electron was still blurred. Later, the name electron was assigned to the particle and the unit of charge e lost its name. However, the unit of energy electronvolt (eV) is a remnant of the fact that the elementary charge was once called electron.

In other natural unit systems, the unit of charge is defined as ${\displaystyle {\sqrt {\varepsilon _{0}\hbar c}},}$ with the result that $${\displaystyle e={\sqrt {4\pi \alpha }}{\sqrt {\varepsilon _{0}\hbar c}}\approx 0.30282212088{\sqrt {\varepsilon _{0}\hbar c}},}$$ where α is the fine-structure constant, c is the speed of light, ε₀ is the electric constant, and ħ is the reduced Planck constant.

Charge quantization is the principle that the charge of any object is an integer multiple of the elementary charge. Thus, an object's charge can be exactly 0 e, or exactly 1 e, −1 e, 2 e, etc., but not ⁠1/2⁠ e, or −3.8 e, etc. (There may be exceptions to this statement, depending on how "object" is defined; see below.)

This is the reason for the terminology "elementary charge": it is meant to imply that it is an indivisible unit of charge.