How to calculate percentage in Excel - formula examples

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:

(Part/Whole)*100 = Percentage

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:

Part/Total = Percentage

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/B2 in 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. Using the basic Excel percentage formula

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. Calculating percentage of a total in Excel

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 A formula to calculate a percentage of the total when items are in multiple rows

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:

Percent Change = (B - A) / A

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:

(New Value - Old Value) / Old Value

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.

  1. Enter the formula in any blank cell in row 2, say D2. This will output the result as a decimal number.
  2. Select the formula cell and click the Percent Style button on the Home tab to convert the decimal number to percentage.
  3. 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. Excel formula to calculate percent change between 2 columns

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: Excel formula to calculate percent change between rows

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. Calculating a percentage change compared to January

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:

Total * Percentage = Amount

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. Calculating amount by total and percentage

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:

Amount / Percentage = Total

Applied to real data, it may take any of the following shapes:

=A2/B2

or

=A2/0.7

or

=A2/70% Calculating the total by amount and percentage

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:

= Amount * (1 + %)

For example, to increase the value in cell A1 by 20%, the formula is:

=A1*(1+20%)

To decrease an amount by a percentage:

= Amount * (1 - %)

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:

=A2*(1-B2) Excel formula to increase a number by percentage

How to increase / reduce an entire column by a 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:

  1. Enter all the numbers you want to increase or decrease in some column, column B in this example.
  2. In an empty cell, enter one of the below formulas:

    Increase by percentage:

    =1+20%

    Reduce by percentage:

    =1-20% A formula to increase an entire column of numbers by a certain percentage

    Naturally, you are free to replace 20% in the above formulas with the percentage you want.

  3. Select the cell with the formula (C2 in our case) and copy it by pressing Ctrl + C.
  4. Select the range of cells you want to change, right click the selection and then click Paste Special… Use Paste Special to increase an entire column of numbers by percentage
  5. In the Paste Special dialog window, select Values under Paste, Multiply under Operation and click OK. In the Paste Special dialog window, select Values under Paste, Multiply under Operation.

And here's the result - all the numbers in column B are increased by 20%: 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.

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!

Table of contents

725 comments

  1. Hi, I need your help, please.
    I have 22 trucks in total, and I have their total downtime(time they are not in use) now I meed to get the percentage of the total downtime per week and per month. I hope you can help, below is my example

    Truck #1 = 2 days downtime last week (how can I get the percentage of this per week)
    Truck #2 = 4 days downtime
    Truck #3 = 6 days downtime
    Total downtime of 3 trucks last week is 11 (how can I get the percentage of this)

    Thanks!

  2. Weight 20 Score 20
    Exp: Weigh Score
    WIR/MIR Rejection Rate % 20 20

    100 - 95 EXCELLENT
    94.9 - 90 VERY GOOD
    89.9 - 85 AVERAGE
    84.9 - 80 BELOW AVERAGE
    79.9 POOR

    Please weigh and score make it 100 percentage , PLease help me out this

  3. This article is good.
    I am n educator. I have a list of (raw) scores eg. 5, 3, 7, 1, 9. The possible total is 10.
    I need a formula that will calculate
    1) The percentage of each score
    2) The number of scores that are LESS than 40%

    I've managed to find a formula that will show how many scores are below 4, but I need to find a way to first calculate the percentage without having to insert an separate column for the percentage.
    =COUNTIF(C2:C8,"<4")
    Thank you

    • Hi!
      To calculate the percentage, divide by the number of all scores. Please read the above article carefully.

      =COUNTIF(C2:C8,"<4")/COUNT(C2:C8)

  4. I have an excel sheet with list of students, theirs' gender, nationalities, seniorities. I have been asked to provide info on breakdown of participants by gender (in %), breakdown of participants by nationalities, breakdown of participants by seniority. I have 2 questions. 1) What does it mean in excel to provide on aforementioned breakdown ? 2) Is there any formula how to do this ? If this is simply calculating percentage, it should be easy, just filtering how many males and females and similar are in the list and then doing count and percentage, but then I am just wondering if i understood correctly what I need to do and whether there is some faster way to do answer problem's questions.

  5. Hi,
    I'm trying to calculate in a chart what percentage of leases expire in each year in one column, 2023, 2024, etc. from a column of varying dates i.e. 1/31/2023, 9/30/2023, 6/30/2024 and also what percentage of square feet of the total building will be represented by the maturing leases each year. What formulas should I use?
    Example of output:
    Year % Maturing % of Building
    2023 40% 25%
    2024 10% 5%

    Thank you in advance for any help,
    JMJ

  6. Hello,

    I am looking to get a work load / utilization percentage formula depending how many tasks certain employees are assigned to. I have a list of names of all the employees in column M (drop down menu). I am looking to find, how many times they come up within that column and what percent of utilization they are at depending on how many assignments there are assigned to and display that in column P.

  7. Hello, I am looking to get the percentage of a product(s) that was allocated to specific companies in a range of weeks, and then comparing to other range of weeks to know which products in difference were allocated. I have my worksheet set up in the following manner:
    The Product and Companies are in Columns (each Company has its respective product) and in the rows I have the weeks and value allocated to each. I need to find the % certain products were allocated.

    I hope I was able to explain it. Thank you for your help.

  8. Hello. I am making a simple spreadsheet to enable me to quote customers. I have it laid out as follows:

    In column A: Column B will hold the variable information, eg:

    A1: Quantity B1: 1.000
    A2: Our buying price B2: 110.00
    A3: Margin (in %) B3: 81.82%
    A4: Our selling price B4: 200.00
    A5: Margin (£'s) B5: £90.00

    I have set this up so that B3 is automatically calculated based on the contents of B2 and B4. That is: B3=(B4-B2)/B2*100

    I am having to put the selling price in first, in order to calculate the margin percentage.

    However! I would also like to be able to enter the margin percentage (B3) first, and have it generate my selling price (B4), based on cost price (B2). But I can't figure out how to do this.

    In other words, I would like it to perform both operations: Allow me to manually enter our selling price, and automatically show me margin %, and vice versa - allow me to manually enter a margin %, and automatically show me the selling price.

    Is this something anybody can help with?

    Thanks in advance!

    • Hi!
      You cannot perform these two operations at the same time using the usual Excel tools, since you cannot write a value and a formula in a cell at the same time. Your task can be accomplished with a VBA macro.

  9. Hi, looking for help attempting to calculate % total from two filters (texts) I am using within my column.
    It's for my work to know how many colleagues are using annual leave and flexi days combined.

    Along top Row of my excel is Monday to Sunday and columns the name of colleagues.
    I want to know at the bottom of the Columns how many people are on Annual Leave and Flexi days using a % for that day of total workforce.

    My filters contain start times, finish times, Annual Leave, Flexi and Finish Times etc.

    Thanks
    Derrick

      • Hello, I have two rows, one row says 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, which represent deposit amounts. Below this row shows percentage of the deposits made by customer: for ex. particular customer deposited 5 times, 3 out of which was 10$, so he places 10$ most frequently. Now I want a formula to give me number with the highest percentage below. I mean the formula which will give me number 10. I hope I managed to explain.

          • Thank u very much.

  10. Hi, if I have 10 columns of numbers together with 1 column indicating the total number of the 10 added up, is there a faster way to find the percentage of each over the total sum? Hope to get help as I have many % to be counted over the total sum.. Thank you.

  11. Hi, I would like to build an excel for different pourcentages applied to a different range of value:
    If 0 to 55000 apply 0.5%
    55,000.01 to 25000 apply 1%
    250,000.01 to 400000 apply 1.5%
    400,000.01 to $2,000,000.00 apply 2%
    if over $2,000,000: apply 2.5%

    How can i do that properly?
    Thank you!

  12. I need my excel sheet to average a set of numbers as follows: the percent of numbers at or above 70 in a single column.

    For example: If my numbers in the column are- 100, 70, 20, 50, 85, 65...what is the percentage of numbers at or above 70.

    I know how to calculate this by hand, but is there a way for excel to calculate this?

    • Hello!
      You can determine the percentage of values less than 70 and greater than 70 using the FREQUENCY formula -

      =FREQUENCY(A1:A10,69)/COUNT(A1:A10)

      Or use COUNTIF function to count the number of values greater than 70 -

      =COUNTIF(A1:A10,">=70")/COUNT(A1:A10)

      I hope it’ll be helpful.

  13. HI
    I WANT TO NOW THE PERCENTAGE BUT THERE IS SUM CONDITIONS. 1, IF THERE IS DATE ITS MEAN WORK DONE. 2 IF THE CELL IS BLANK ITS MEAN WORK TO BE DONE . IF THE CELL HAS "NA" MEAN NO PERCENTAGE REQUIRED.
    CELL A1 CELL B1 CELL C1 CELL D1
    22.2.22 22.2.22 22.2.22 100% (RESULT SHOULD BE) D1/3
    " " NA 22.2.22 50% (RESULT SHOULD BE) D1/2 BECAUSE NA REMOVE IN PERCENTAGE PART
    " " " " 22.2.22 33.33% (RESULT SHOULD BE) D1/3 BECAUSE WORK DONE IS 1/3
    NA NA NA 0.00% (RESULT SHOULD BE 0 BECAUSE NA IS EXEMPTED IN PERCENTAGE

  14. Hi!
    I have a column (Column A) with current year's sales per month and total.
    In Column B I have calculated the % of sales attributed to each month (giving a total of 100%).
    In Column C I want to calculate the value amount of sales for next target year (I have the overall target for the year) based on the same % per month as current year.
    e.g. (Column A) Jan 2021 Sales = 2055 (cell A1); Feb 2021 Sales = 1908 (cell A2) etc giving a total for 2021 of 21619 (cell A13)
    (Column B) (rounded to 0 decimal place %) Jan = 10% (cell B1); Feb = 9% (cell B2) etc
    (Column C) The overall target total is 24200 (cell C13). What formula to use to get Jan 2022, i.e. 10% of 24200 and Feb 2022, i.e. 9% of 24200
    Thanks

    • Hi!
      Pay attention to the following paragraph of the article above – Calculating amount and total by percentage.

      =B1*$C$13

      Try to enter the following formula in cell C1 and then copy it down along the column. Use an absolute reference to the target total cell.

      • Thank you so much - I had an incorrect (historic) number format in my destination cells. Your explanation was excellent and worked wonderfully. Thank you again!

  15. Question is:

    Condition - order should be supllied within 48 hours (2 days)
    Need to calculate the percentage for the amount of orders supllied within 48 hours to see if I am keeping the markup of 90%. Can I know what is the formula to get the calculations between the ordered date and date received with the number of orders.

  16. Hi!
    I need to find the percentage that $435 is in $2500 but my assessment states that I need to use an Excel formula. What formula do I use?

  17. Hi! Is there a way or a formula of highlighting the values using conditional formatting per say less than 10% of the total without having to calculate the percentages beforehand and a separate row or a column for percentage?

  18. I am trying to find the % of present attendance I have the names going down and the months across. I put an X if they are present at a meeting. At the end I have the total number of meetings they were present at. I need the formula to give me the % of meetings they were present at. so if total is 7 meetings present (column N12) how do I get the % of 7 meetings our of 12. Hope this makes since. Not sure if it does!

  19. In column one I have one date and in column two I have another date (which is later in time than the date in column one). Column three needs to reads 50% when column one date has been reached and 100% when column two date has been reached. What would be the formula for column three.

      • This is perfect thanks! I am adding to this question
        C2 D2 E2 F2
        Last year's Drill Drill #1 Date Drill #2 forcasted Date Conformance %
        5/5/2022 5/30/2022 50.00%
        I need to show when we are within 6 months of last years drill dates. D2 has to be within 6 months of C2. When D2 is completed within 6 months of C2 I would like D2 cell to turn green. When D2 date is 30 days out from hitting the size month mark and has not been complete I would like the cell to turn yellow. If the C2 date is equal to or past the D2 date I would like the D2 cell to turn red.

  20. Hello,

    I am trying to provide a percentage from column B divided by column A giving the resulted percentage of blanks in column B. What would be the formula for this?

    Thank you.

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