Many wonder whether the as in as per is superfluous. Wouldn’t the phrase “per your instructions” mean much the same thing as “as per your instructions?” In that case, would it be incorrect to insert the extra word?
The fact is that both per and as per have existed in English in the sense “according to” for a very long time–since the 15th and 16th centuries, respectively. The choice of which to use (or avoid) is entirely a matter of taste. The more ponderous as per is often found in business and legal prose, or in writing that attempts to adopt a formal tone. It is not incorrect to use, but some find it overly legalistic and counsel avoiding it for that reason. On the other hand, it has been used to good effect in facetious mock-business-English (“as per the President’s shiny new Environmental Policy Act”). As in so many matters of diction, the tonal needs of a particular passage should guide your choice.
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The results of a toxicological examination are pending, and Germany’s Memmingen Criminal Police Inspectorate under the direction of the Memmingen Public Prosecutor’s Office is handling the investigation, as per the news release.—Saman Shafiq, USA Today, 29 Apr. 2026 Furthermore, the system is scalable to continuous operation and megawatt (MW)-scale applications, highlighting its potential as a practical technology for industrial deployment, as per the release.—Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 26 Apr. 2026 After leaving Texas, the family checked in at the East Caley Avenue ICE Facility in Centennial as per the requirement, where the family's lawyers say they were detained yet again.—Christa Swanson, CBS News, 25 Apr. 2026 As for the pricing, the S starts at £2,799 in the UK – that’s around US$3,770 as per direct currency conversion, while the X rises to £2,999 (US$4,040).—New Atlas, 24 Apr. 2026 See All Example Sentences for as per