What's a maths crossword?
Swap the letters in a crossword for digits and the clues for calculations, and you've got a maths crossword — also sold in puzzle magazines as a cross-number or cross-figure (and, across the Atlantic, as a math crossword; same puzzle, one letter lighter). The genre is nearly as old as the crossword itself: number versions started appearing in British magazines within years of the first word grids, and they've been a quiet staple of puzzle pages ever since. Every answer here is a whole number between three and seven digits long, one digit per square.
What makes it more than a worksheet in disguise is the grid. When 6 Across and 2 Down share a square, they have to agree on the digit in it — so every answer you place quietly marks the answers crossing it. Get a sum wrong and the grid pushes back almost immediately; get it right and the crossings hand you free digits for the next calculation. It's the only kind of arithmetic practice that checks your working as you go.
The kinds of clues you'll meet
Every clue is a self-contained calculation with exactly one answer. The mix:
- Quick sums — 600 + 87, 700 − 13. Friendly round-number arithmetic you can do in your head.
- Times tables, stretched — 7 × 64. The times table you know, applied to a number you don't.
- Doubles and halves — Double 343, Half of 1,374. The most useful mental-maths move there is.
- Sharing out — 1,368 ÷ 3, for solvers who like division.
- Place value — In digits: six thousand and forty, or 144 × 10. Reading and shifting numbers, straight off the curriculum.
- Square numbers — 26 × 26, when the answer happens to be a perfect square.
- Famous numbers — the seasoning. Degrees in a full circle, Year of the first Moon landing, Seconds in a day. A little number-trivia to break up the sums, always the genuinely well-known kind.
How to solve one (mostly in your head)
- Raid the gimmes first. Famous numbers and In digits: clues need no arithmetic at all — place them and they seed the grid with checked digits for everything else.
- Think last digits. Anything × 10 ends in 0. Any double is even. Anything × 5 ends in 0 or 5. Often you can write a clue's final digit before doing the sum — and one crossing digit is frequently all a neighbour needs.
- Estimate, then commit. For 84,000 − 631 you know the answer starts with an 8 and has five digits before you calculate anything. First digits are the most valuable squares in the grid, because…
- …no answer starts with zero. The classic cross-number convention, honoured here. If your arithmetic wants to put a 0 in the first square of any answer, something's gone wrong one clue over.
- Let the crossings referee. Disagreeing squares mean one of the two sums is off — recheck the easier one first. The Check button under the grid will also happily point fingers.
The small print on our clues
Cross-number purists should know what this page is and isn't. Traditional cross-figures love clues that reference each other — "Twice 3 Across", "The digits of 5 Down, reversed" — which turns the whole grid into one tangled simultaneous-equation knot. Genuinely clever, genuinely not easy. We're easy-crosswords.com, so our clues are deliberately self-contained: every one can be solved on its own, in any order, starting anywhere. You still get the crossing-digit magic; you just never get locked out of a corner because it depends on a clue you haven't cracked. And unlike our word puzzles, there's no judgement call hiding anywhere — every clue has exactly one correct answer, so the machinery that builds these can verify every grid completely before you see it.
Secretly a maths lesson (don't tell anyone)
Teachers and parents have used cross-numbers for decades, because they smuggle a full mental-arithmetic workout — addition, subtraction, times tables, halving, place value — into something that feels like a game, with instant self-checking built in. The printable packs just below the puzzle were made with classrooms in mind: pick a size, add a name & date line, keep the answer key pages back, and print. The three sizes are a ready-made differentiation ladder — the 5×5 is a quick starter, the 9×9 keeps early finishers busy for a good while. (Working on spellings instead? Our crossword maker turns any word list into a printable puzzle, too.)
Common questions
Which size should I pick?
The 5×5 is around ten quick answers — a coffee-break solve. The 7×7 adds longer numbers and a few more crossings. The 9×9 is the full sit-down puzzle, twenty-odd calculations that lean on each other nicely. Your choice is remembered, and each size keeps its own puzzle history.
What ages are these good for?
Confident with times tables and three-digit sums — typically around 8–9 and up — and there's no ceiling: plenty of adults use cross-numbers to keep mental arithmetic sharp. For younger solvers, start on the 5×5 and let the crossings do half the checking.
Can I use a calculator?
Of course — it's your puzzle. But try the estimate-and-last-digit tricks above first; the puzzle is friendlier to mental maths than it looks, and that's rather the point. A nice middle path: solve in your head, calculator only to settle arguments with the grid.
Why can't an answer start with 0?
Convention, and a kind one: we don't write 0687 for 687, so no answer in a cross-number ever begins with a zero. It's also a free solving hint — every first square in the grid is guaranteed to hold 1–9.
Can a clue have two possible answers?
No — every clue is a calculation with exactly one result. (If you've played our anagram crosswords, where a clue's letters can genuinely fit several answers, this page is the opposite temperament: the crossings here don't decide the answer, they audit it.)
Can I print these?
Yes — open Download a puzzle pack just under the puzzle. Size, how many, one or two per page, large print, answer key, name & date line: tick what you need and a ready-to-print PDF downloads instantly. Number grids print beautifully; the clues are shorter than any word puzzle's.
Will I see the same puzzle twice?
No — your device remembers every grid you've played here and the engine refuses to repeat one. With thousands of numbers in the pool and each one carrying several different clues, even a returning answer usually arrives wearing a new sum.