To my understanding, both mean "account", as in a bank account or online account. 账户 also appears to be the more common (100M search results) compared to 帐户 (about 50M results). What is the difference, if any, between their usage and meaning?
To boot, they have the exact same pronunciation.
账户 is the correct form, and 帐户 is a common typo seen a lot in online services.
账 or 账本 means "books", and 记账 is the action of "accounting". The word 账户 means a "bank account", and is also used as "online account" nowadays.
帐 has meanings related to cloth, like "mosquito net"(蚊帐) or "tent"(帐篷).
P.S. There is no entry for 帐户 in The Standard Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese.
They are the same.
Today we recommended to use 账户 if it is about money.
贝 mean "money".
巾 mean "paper".
"账" has something with money. For example, you open an account in bank, you should use "账号"。“帐”was once used before 1990s. But the new laws rule that "账" is used when it related with money. But in many cases, people always don't know the difference between them. And they use both of them sometimes. 帐 is related with cloth. For example, "帐篷" means "tent" and is made of cloth. By the way, I am a teacher from han bridge mandarin.
This question is very interesting.because i have do the same exercise to identify these two phrases:账户 and 帐户. Because we have similar test in college entrance examination.(高考) There are differences: 贝 is something about money. You may ask why. Because Chinese think people in ancient age use shell as medium to exchange food or other things. That means 贝 is related to money. So if you see something which is related to money ,账户 is used. And in other situation ,we use 帐户.
账户tends to be standardized especially for accounting field. “帐”与“账”的区别 – Jun 17 '15 at 02:04