by In this tutorial, you will lean a quick way to calculate percentages in Excel, find the basic percentage formula and a few more formulas for calculating percentage increase, percent of total and more.
Calculating percentage is useful in many areas of life, whether it is restaurant tipping, reseller commission, your income tax or interest rate. Say, you've been lucky enough to get a 25% off promotion code on a new plasma TV. Is this a good deal? And how much will you eventually have to pay?
In this tutorial, we are going to explore a few techniques that will help you efficiently calculate percent in Excel and learn the basic percentage formulas that will take the guesswork out of your calculations.
Percentage basics
The term "per cent" is derived from the Latin per centum, meaning "by the hundred". As you probably remember from high school math class, a percentage is a fraction of 100 that is calculated by dividing the numerator by the denominator and multiplying the result by 100.
The basic percentage formula is as follows:
For example, if you had 20 apples and you gave 5 to your friends, how much did you give, percentage wise? By performing a simple calculation =5/20*100 you get the answer - 25%.
This is how you normally calculate percentages in school and everyday life. Computing percentage in Microsoft Excel is even easier since Excel performs some operations for you automatically, in the background.
Regrettably, there is no universal Excel formula for percentage that would cover all possible scenarios. If you ask someone "Which percent formula do I use to get the result I want?", most likely, you will get an answer like "Well, that depends on what exactly result you want to achieve."
So, let me show you a few simple formulas for calculating a percent in Excel such as a percentage increase formula, a formula to get percentages of a total and more.
Basic Excel percentage formula
The basic formula to calculate percentage in Excel is this:
If you compare it to the basic math formula for percentage, you will notice that Excel's percentage formula lacks the *100 part. When calculating a percent in Excel, you do not have to multiply the resulting fraction by 100 since Excel does this automatically when the Percentage format is applied to a cell.
And now, let's see how you can use the Excel percentage formula on real-life data. Suppose, you have the number of "Ordered items" in column B and "Delivered items" in column C. To find out the percentage of delivered products, perform the following steps:
- Enter the formula
=C2/B2in cell D2, and copy it down to as many rows as you need. - Click the Percent Style button (Home tab > Number group) to display the resulting decimal fractions as percentages.
- Remember to increase the number of decimal places if needed, as explained in Percentage tips.
- Done! : )
The same sequence of steps shall be performed when using any other percentage formula in Excel.
In the following example, column D displays a rounded percent of delivered items, without any decimal places showing.
Calculating percentage of total in Excel
In fact, the above example is a particular case of calculating percentages of a total. Now, let's investigate a few more examples that will help you make quick work of calculating a percent of a total in Excel on different data sets.
Example 1. The total is at the end of the table in a certain cell
A very common scenario is when you have a total in a single cell at the end of a table. In this case, the percentage formula will be similar to the one we've just discussed with the only difference that a cell reference in the denominator is an absolute reference (with $).The dollar sign fixes the reference to a given cell, so that it never changes no matter where the formula is copied.
For example, if you have some values in column B and their total in cell B10, you'd use the following formula to calculate percentages of the total:
=B2/$B$10
You use a relative cell reference to cell B2 because you want it to get changed when you copy the formula to other cells of column B. But you enter $B$10 as an absolute cell reference because you want to leave the denominator fixed on B10 when auto-filling the formula down to row 9.
Tip. To make the denominator an absolute reference, either type the dollar sign ($) manually or click the cell reference in the formula bar and press F4.
The screenshot below demonstrates the results returned by the formula, the Percentages of Total column is formatted as percentage with 2 decimal places showing.
Example 2. Parts of the total are in multiple rows
In the above example, suppose you have several rows for the same product and you want to know what part of the total is made by all orders of that particular product.
In this case, you can use the SUMIF function to add up all numbers relating to a given product first, and then divide that number by the total, like this:
=SUMIF(range, criteria, sum_range) / total
Given that column A contains all product names, column B lists corresponding quantities, cell E1 is the name of the product you are interested in, and the total is in cell B10, your real-life formula may look similar to this:
=SUMIF(A2:A9 ,E1, B2:B9) / $B$10
Naturally, you can put the product name directly in the formula, like this:
=SUMIF(A2:A9, "cherries", B2:B9) / $B$10
If you want to find out what part of the total a few different products make, add up the results returned by several SUMIF functions, and then divide that number by the total. For example, the following formula calculates the percent of cherries and apples:
=(SUMIF(A2:A9, "cherries", B2:B9) + SUMIF(A2:A9, "apples", B2:B9)) / $B$10
For more information about the SUM function, please check out the following tutorials:
How to calculate percent difference in Excel
Of all formulas for calculating percentage in Excel, a percent change formula is probably the one you would use most often.
Excel formula for percent increase / decrease
To calculate the percentage of difference between two values A and B, the generic formula is:
When applying this formula to real data, it is important that you correctly determine which value is A and which is B. For example, yesterday you had 80 apples and how you have 100, meaning that now you have 20 apples more than before, which is 25% increase. If you had 100 apples and now you have 80, your number of apples has reduced by 20, which is 20% decrease.
Considering the above, our Excel formula for percentage change takes the following shape:
And now, let's see how you can use this formula for calculating percent difference in your spreadsheets.
Example 1. Calculating percent difference between 2 columns
Suppose you have the last month prices in column B and this month prices in column C. Then your percent change formula takes this form:
=(C2-B2)/B2
To calculate the percent difference between two numbers correctly, carry out these steps.
- Enter the formula in any blank cell in row 2, say D2. This will output the result as a decimal number.
- Select the formula cell and click the Percent Style button on the Home tab to convert the decimal number to percentage.
- Drag the formula down to copy it to the below cells.
As the result, the formula calculates the percentage of change in this month (column C) comparted to last month (column B). Positive percentages that show percentage increase are formatted in usual black, while negative percentages (percent decrease) are formatted in red. To have this done automatically, set up a custom format for negative percentages as explained in this tip.
Example 2. Calculating percentage difference between two numbers
In case you have one column of numbers, say column C that lists weekly or monthly sales, you can calculate the percentage change between the previous week/month and the current one using this formula:
=(C3-C2)/C2
Where C2 and C3 are the numbers you are comparing.
Note. Please pay attention that you should skip the first row with data and put your percent difference formula in the 2nd cell, which is D3 in this example.
To display decimals as percentages, apply the percent format to the cells containing your formula, and you will get the following result:
To calculate the percentage of change between a certain number and all other numbers, fix the address of that cell by using the $ sign, e.g. $C$2.
For instance, to calculates the percent increase / decrease for each month compared to January (C2), the formula in D3 is:
=(C3-$C$2)/$C$2
When copying the formula to the below cells, the absolute reference ($C$2) will remain the same, while the relative reference (C3) will change to C4, C5, and so on based on a relative position of the row where the formula is copied.
For more formula examples, please see How to calculate percentage change in Excel.
Calculating amount and total by percentage
As you've just seen, calculating percentages in Excel is easy, and so is calculating amounts and totals if you know the percentage.
Example 1. Calculate amount by total and percentage
Suppose you are buying a new laptop for $950 and they charge 11% VAT on this purchase. The question is - how much do you have to pay on top of the net price? In other words, what is 11% of $950?
The following formula will help:
Assuming that the total value is in cell A2 and percent in B2, the above formula turns into a simple =A2*B2 and returns 104.50.
Remember, when you type a number followed by the percent sign (%) in Excel, the number is interpreted as a hundredth of its value. For example, 11% is actually stored as 0.11 and Excel uses this underlying value in all formulas and calculations.
In other words, the formula =A2*11% is equivalent to =A2*0.11. Naturally, you are free to use the decimal number corresponding to the percentage directly in a formula if this works better for your worksheets.
Example 2. Calculating total by amount and percentage
For example, you friend offered you his old computer for $400, which is 30% off the original price. You want to know what the original price was.
Since 30% is the discount, you deduct it from 100% first to know what percentage you actually have to pay (100% - 30% = 70%). Now you need the formula to calculate the original price, i.e. to find the number whose 70% equals 400.
The formula goes as follows:
Applied to real data, it may take any of the following shapes:
=A2/B2
or
=A2/0.7
or
=A2/70%
Tip. To get an answer to a more difficult question - how to calculate the interest amount of a loan payment knowing an interest rate - check out the IPMT function.
How to increase / decrease a number by percentage
The holiday season is upon us and this indicates a change in your usual weekly spendings. You may want to consider different options to find out your optimum weekly allowance.
To increase an amount by a percentage, use this formula:
For example, to increase the value in cell A1 by 20%, the formula is:
=A1*(1+20%)
To decrease an amount by a percentage:
For instance, to reduce the value in cell A1 by 20%, the formula is:
=A1*(1-20%)
In our example, if A2 is your current expenditures and B2 is the percentage you want to increase or reduce that amount by, here are the formulas you'd enter in cell C2:
Increase by percentage:
=A2*(1+B2)
Reduce by percentage:
Suppose, you have a column of numbers that you want to increase or reduce by a certain percent, and you want to have the updated numbers in the same column rather than add a new column with the formula. Here are 5 quick steps to handle this task: Increase by percentage: Reduce by percentage: Naturally, you are free to replace 20% in the above formulas with the percentage you want. And here's the result - all the numbers in column B are increased by 20%:
In the same fashion, you can multiply or divide a column of numbers by a certain percentage. Simply enter the desired percentage in an empty cell and follow the steps above.=A2*(1-B2)
How to increase / reduce an entire column by a percentage
=1+20%=1-20%
This is how you calculate percentage in Excel. And even if working with percentages has never been your favorite kind of math, by using these basic percentage formulas you can get Excel to do the work for you. That's all for today, thank you for reading!
725 comments
Hello!
I have exported a customers account activity to excel. one of the columns is for Drop ship (or DS). This is when we are shipping a product to a third party for our customer instead of shipping it directly to our customer. Every row representing an invoice for this customer either has a DS or is blank in this DS column. how do I calculate the percentage of Drop ships vs. none Drop ships at the bottom??
Hello!
Use the COUNTIF function to count the number of values for a condition.
=COUNTIF(A1:A20,"DS")/COUNTIF(A1:A20,"")
This should solve your task.
Hello, I'm trying to figure out how likely an event might happen given a string of prior events. Let's say player A has been selected in 10 drafts (2 player taken, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 5th, 1st, 3rd, 4th and 1st). I want to know what draft slot would he still be available in 90% of drafts, 75% of drafts, 50%, 25% and 10%. How can I do this in excel? Math is hard, Thanks!
Hi!
If you describe to me the sequence of calculations, I can help you write the formula.
Hello Alexander, thank you for responding. I am not sure of the sequence of calculations, that's what I am hoping to get help with. I am trying to recreate some work I found online by an amazing fantasy baseball writer. He pulled data from several types of leagues, they differ in the types of scoring used to the amount of teams in the league. I am only pulling the data that most resembles the league I play in. From the data he was able to determine what pick players might be drafted in future drafts. For instance in 90% of drafts such and such player would still be available pick 3, in 75% of drafts they might still be available pick 5 and so on. I tried to use the PROB function but I wasn't sure how to set it up. I kept getting the #N/A error. Is this enough information to help?
Hi, I have a list of products that are different days old (manufactured on different stages)
I want to calculate out of this list what percentage of the products are between10 and 20 days old, 20 and 30days old etc. What formula can I use?
For instance:
Product 1 - 10 days
Product 2 - 11 days
Product 3 - 12 days
Product 4 - 20 days
Product 5 - 22 days
Product 6 - 31 days
Would I be able to use a formula to calculate the % of products between 10 - 20days and 20 - 30 days etc.
Easy enough if sitting with say 6 products but not so easy if 1000's of products.
Thanks!
Hello!
The formula below will do the trick for you:
=FREQUENCY(A1:A10,D1:D4)/COUNT(A1:A10)
A1:A10 - your data (days)
D1:D4 - grouping value range (9, 19, 29,39)
Set formula cells to percentage format.
hello sir, i want to ask you something. if i have value like 50 how much it will be 100%. what formula do i need for this one?
Hi, Can you help me calculate a running/cumulative percentage? Meaning if I took a price increase of 4% in April, a 6% price increase in June, 0% price increase in November and a 7% price increase in December. How can I calculate the total % of the increase in a year? I cannot just total them up. But I don't know how to create the formula that builds them up to the correct %. I'd like to create the formula for a 12 month period, where some months took 0% for certain products.
Thanks
Hello!
If you have 12 months, then in this case you can use the formula for calculating the average.
=SUM(A1:A12)/12
If the weight of each value is not the same, use the weighted average calculation.
Good job,pease I have an inventory stock project,please help me out on ho to calculate 30%, here is the sample ( goods is sold at 450 in cell A, now how do I subtract 30% from 450 in Xcel thanks
Hi!
Pay attention to the following paragraph of the article above - How to increase / decrease a number by percentage.
Hello,
I have a series of numbers.
D2 = 50
D6 = 5
E2 = 25
E6 = 10
F2 = 32
F6 = 15
first I am doing this =sum(D6*D2)+(E2*E6)+(F2*F6)
Now, I need to subtract 18% of E6 before I can multiply E2*E6
I have tried numerous way with no success. Like: =sum(D6*D2)+((E2-18%)*E6)+(F2*F6)
Can you help?
Hi!
Please try the following formula:
=D6*D2+E2*E6*(1-0.18)+F2*F6
help needed!!
what formula do I use if to work out the percentage of complaints per 100,000 customers
info
week 1 - 655235 customers with 45 complaints
week 2 - 698465 customers with 48 complaints
and so on and so on......
thank you in advance
Hi!
Please re-check the article above since it covers your task.
=B1/A1*100%
I am trying to come up with a formula for positive time stats. I’ve downloaded the report from Cognos that breaks down each time status used in the system and I I want to be able to convert specific cells “stats” minutes into percentages of total minutes worked. I want to use this to help with time management. Any ideas?
Using simple formula for positive time stat: active minutes (450) /total minutes worked (510) *100
Hi!
I don't know how you define active minutes. But I think that you can use the SUMIF function to count active minutes. I can't give you more specific advice because I don't have more information from you.
I have total costs of each individual job task for a single Purchase Order Value for work to be performed. I have to charge 10.2% tax total for the entire job but need to show breakdown of tax per individual job task. All of my totals in Row 6 have to be taxed at 10.2% in equal increments. Not all scenarios will have require all job tasks so I would also need to exclude any costs of $0. TIA
Hello!
You can get a list of tasks for an individual job that has a cost greater than 0 using the FILTER function. For detailed instructions, see this article: Filter with multiple AND criteria.
I hope it’ll be helpful. If something is still unclear, please feel free to ask.
Hello,
I am trying to come up with I believe a variance to a goal, which is a percent. The goal is 10% of the total number of boxes.
So let’s say I have column A as total boxes, column b is the variance (what I’m trying to figure out) and column c is the goal 10%.
I’m trying to make this to where I can make it as simple as possible, because I will be editing this daily.
Thank you
Hi!
I am not sure I fully understand what you mean.
I’m not sure how else to explain it to be honest. So I’m in sales and I track multiple metrics at a time. One of the metrics that I track is total amount of (a). The goal of (a) varies monthly. I will also track (b) the goal for (b) is 10% of the total of (a). What I am trying to figure out is the difference or variance of the goal of (b) which is 10% of the total (a) sold.
So how many more (b) needs to be sold to reach goal, or how many above goal we are.
Idk if that is any easier or not. Thank you for trying though
Hi!
If I understand correctly, then you can calculate how much is left to achieve the goal of 10% using the formula
=A1*10% - B1
B1 is current sales.
I have two columns H1 and F1. If H1 = 90 and F1= 40 and I want to calculate 40 out of 90 as a percentage then would it be correct to write 40/90*100 as a formula (i.e. H1/F1*100) or is there any other alternative?
Hello!
You can use the formula
=F1/H1*100
I want the percentage of group of number not two I don’t understand
Can i use direct formula for percentage.
Hello there! Can i get your help please!
What if i need to multiply gross salary of my employees based on their gender.
For example.
I need to multiply gross salary where gender=female by 5% and where gender is male by 4%.. Is it possible?
I tried this ?way but, not work
=if(c3=F, (g3)*5% ,if(c3=m, (g3)*4%))
Hi!
Text in formulas should always be enclosed in quotes.
=if(c3="F", g3*5% ,if(c3= "m", g3*4%, ""))
Your problem is described in this article - Excel formulas not working, not updating, not calculating: fixes & solutions
Hi! I would like to know how to compute this kind of formula
$40 x.20 + $40 = $48
is it possible?
Thank you!
Hello!
This is text. The formula cannot contain $ currency symbols or letters. I recommend reading: Best practices for writing Excel formulas. I hope it’ll be helpful.
THREE COLUMN
250 620 150 28% HOW TO CALCULATE (28% IN ONE COLUMN)
=coulmn*%/100+%
Pls can you help me on the above list. I want to define the share of each value in % from a defined value. I have to share the whole amount of 77083 into each client based on the value they have to have a total of 100 % value share
Value of each client Value to be shared
88800 77083
89400
15000
34800
28200
11400
7800
30600
7200
3600
Hello!
I recommend reading this guide: How to multiply by percentage in Excel
Use this formula:
=A1/$A$11*$C$1
After that, you can copy this formula down along the column.
Hello, i need to calculate how many positive surveys do i need to reach 55% or more. Example:
1 2 3 4 5 6
A Detractors Neutral Promoters Total Client Satisfaction Promters Needed for 55% or more
B 2 1 5 8 37.5% ????
Formula to get Client Satisfaction
=(B3-B1)/B4
Hopefully you can help me on this.
Thank you
Hello!
If I understand your task correctly, the following formula should work for you:
=ROUNDUP((D1*B1+D1+B1)/(1-D1),0)
D1=0.55
Excel also has a special add-in for such tasks - Solver.
I hope I answered your question.
I need help with a formula that would calculate the annual percentage market gain or loss on an investment account. The account had a positive starting balance and in addition to the market gain, there were a few deposits and withdrawals during the year just completed. I know how to make the calculation without the deposits and withdrawals but the problem I'm having is when they are included.
Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you.
Allen S.