/h/ — the H sound as in he, have, home

The main spelling (100%)

⟨h⟩

The letter ⟨h⟩ is the only spelling for /h/. It never appears at the end of native English words.

Position rule: The /h/ sound only occurs at the beginning of syllables, never at the end. That's why English has no words ending in the /h/ sound.

Unusual spellings (<1%)

⟨wh⟩ in "who" words

In a small group of words, ⟨wh⟩ is pronounced /h/ (not /w/). The ⟨w⟩ is silent.

Just four words: The ⟨wh⟩ → /h/ pattern appears in only who, whole, whose, and whom. In all other ⟨wh⟩ words (what, when, where, which, why, white...), the ⟨wh⟩ is pronounced /w/.
Two ways to see this: You can think of ⟨wh⟩ → /h/ as an unusual spelling of /h/, or as a silent ⟨w⟩ before ⟨h⟩ — see the silent W page for the full list. Both are valid.

⟨j⟩ in Spanish words

In words borrowed from Spanish, ⟨j⟩ is pronounced /h/ (the Spanish "jota" sound).

Spanish J: In Spanish, the letter ⟨j⟩ makes an /h/ sound. Words like baja and place names like José and La Jolla keep this pronunciation in English.

Silent ⟨h⟩

In many words, ⟨h⟩ is completely silent. These are not /h/ spellings — the ⟨h⟩ makes no sound at all.

After vowels: oh, ah, yeah

In ⟨gh⟩: night, through, though, daughter

In ⟨rh⟩: rhythm, rhyme

At word start (borrowed words): hour, honest, honor, heir

French loans: Words like hour, honest, and honor came from French, where the /h/ had already been dropped. The spelling kept the ⟨h⟩ but we don't pronounce it. See the H-deletion rule for more.