Excel logical operators: equal to, not equal to, greater than, less than

Many tasks you perform in Excel involve comparing data in different cells. For this, Microsoft Excel provides six logical operators, which are also called comparison operators. This tutorial aims to help you understand the insight of Excel logical operators and write the most efficient formulas for your data analysis.

Excel logical operators - overview

A logical operator is used in Excel to compare two values. Logical operators are sometimes called Boolean operators because the result of the comparison in any given case can only be either TRUE or FALSE.

Six logical operators are available in Excel. The following table explains what each of them does and illustrates the theory with formula examples.

Condition Operator Formula Example Description
Equal to = =A1=B1 The formula returns TRUE if a value in cell A1 is equal to the values in cell B1; FALSE otherwise.
Not equal to <> =A1<>B1 The formula returns TRUE if a value in cell A1 is not equal to the value in cell B1; FALSE otherwise.
Greater than > =A1>B1 The formula returns TRUE if a value in cell A1 is greater than a value in cell B1; otherwise it returns FALSE.
Less than < =A1<B1 The formula returns TRUE if a value in cell A1 is less than in cell B1; FALSE otherwise.
Greater than or equal to >= =A1>=B1 The formula returns TRUE if a value in cell A1 is greater than or equal to the values in cell B1; FALSE otherwise.
Less than or equal to <= =A1<=B1 The formula returns TRUE if a value in cell A1 is less than or equal to the values in cell B1; FALSE otherwise.

The screenshot below demonstrates the results returned by Equal to, Not equal to, Greater than and Less than logical operators:
Using Equal to, Not equal to, Greater than and Less than in Excel

It may seem that the above table covers it all and there's nothing more to talk about. But in fact, each logical operator has its own specificities and knowing them can help you harness the real power of Excel formulas.

Using "Equal to" logical operator in Excel

The Equal to logical operator (=) can be used to compare all data types - numbers, dates, text values, Booleans, as well as the results returned by other Excel formulas. For example:

=A1=B1 Returns TRUE if the values in cells A1 and B1 are the same, FALSE otherwise.
=A1="oranges" Returns TRUE if cells A1 contain the word "oranges", FALSE otherwise.
=A1=TRUE Returns TRUE if cells A1 contain the Boolean value TRUE, otherwise it returns FALSE.
=A1=(B1/2) Returns TRUE if a number in cell A1 is equal to the quotient of the division of B1 by 2, FALSE otherwise.

Example 1. Using the "Equal to" operator with dates

You might be surprised to know that the Equal to logical operator cannot compare dates as easily as numbers. For example, if the cells A1 and A2 contain the date "12/1/2014", the formula =A1=A2 will return TRUE exactly as it should.

However, if you try either =A1=12/1/2014 or =A1="12/1/2014" you will get FALSE as the result. A bit unexpected, eh?

The point is that Excel stores dates as numbers beginning with 1-Jan-1900, which is stored as 1. The date 12/1/2014 is stored as 41974. In the above formulas, Microsoft Excel interprets "12/1/2014" as a usual text string, and since "12/1/2014" is not equal to 41974, it returns FALSE.

To get the correct result, you must always wrap a date in the DATEVALUE function, like this =A1=DATEVALUE("12/1/2014")
Using Excel's equal to operator with dates

Note. The DATEVALUE function needs to be used with other logical operator as well, as demonstrated in the examples that follow.

The same approach should be applied when you use Excel's equal to operator in the logical test of the IF function. You can find more info as well as a few formula examples in this tutorial: Using Excel IF function with dates.

Example 2. Using the "Equal to" operator with text values

Using Excel's Equal to operator with text values does not require any extra twists. The only thing you should keep in mind is that the Equal to logical operator in Excel is case-insensitive, meaning that case differences are ignored when comparing text values.

For example, if cell A1 contains the word "oranges" and cell B1 contains "Oranges", the formula =A1=B1 will return TRUE.

If you want to compare text values taking in to account their case differences, you should use the EXACT function instead of the Equal to operator. The syntax of the EXACT function is as simple as:

EXACT(text1, text2)

Where text 1 and text2 are the values you want to compare. If the values are exactly the same, including case, Excel returns TRUE; otherwise, it returns FALSE. You can also use the EXACT function in IF formulas when you need a case-sensitive comparison of text values, as shown in the below screenshot:
Using the EXACT function for case-sensitive comparison of text values

Note. If you want to compare the length of two text values, you can use the LEN function instead, for example =LEN(A2)=LEN(B2) or =LEN(A2)>=LEN(B2).

Example 3. Comparing Boolean values and numbers

There is a widespread opinion that in Microsoft Excel the Boolean value of TRUE always equates to 1 and FALSE to 0. However, this is only partially true, and the key word here is "always" or more precisely "not always" : )

When writing an 'equal to' logical expression that compares a Boolean value and a number, you need to specifically point out for Excel that a non-numeric Boolean value should be treated as a number. You can do this by adding the double minus sign in front of a Boolean value or a cell reference, e. g. =A2=--TRUE or =A2=--B2.

The 1st minus sign, which is technically called the unary operator, coerces TRUE/FALSE to -1/0, respectively, and the second unary negates the values turning them into +1 and 0. This will probably be easier to understand looking at the following screenshot:
Comparing Boolean values and numbers

Note. You should add the double unary operator before a Boolean when using other logical operators such as not equal to, greater than or less than to correctly compare a numeric and Boolean values.

When using logical operators in complex formulas, you might also need to add the double unary before each logical expression that returns TRUE or FALSE as the result. Here's an example of such a formula: SUMPRODUCT and SUMIFS in Excel.

Using "Not equal to" logical operator in Excel

You use Excel's Not equal to operator (<>) when you want to make sure that a cell's value is not equal to a specified value. The use of the Not equal to operator is very similar to the use of Equal to that we discussed a moment ago.

The results returned by the Not equal to operator are analogous to the results produced by the Excel NOT function that reverses the value of its argument. The following table provides a few formula examples.

Not equal to operator NOT function Description
=A1<>B1 =NOT(A1=B1) Returns TRUE if the values in cells A1 and B1 are not the same, FALSE otherwise.
=A1<>"oranges" =NOT(A1="oranges") Returns TRUE if cell A1 contains any value other than "oranges", FALSE if it contains "oranges" or "ORANGES" or "Oranges", etc.
=A1<>TRUE =NOT(A1=TRUE) Returns TRUE if cell A1 contains any value other than TRUE, FALSE otherwise.
=A1<>(B1/2) =NOT(A1=B1/2) Returns TRUE if a number in cell A1 is not equal to the quotient of the division of B1 by 2, FALSE otherwise.
=A1<>DATEVALUE("12/1/2014") =NOT(A1=DATEVALUE("12/1/2014")) Returns TRUE if A1 contains any value other than the date of 1-Dec-2014, regardless of the date format, FALSE otherwise.

Greater than, less than, greater than or equal to, less than or equal to

You use these logical operators in Excel to check how one number compares to another. Microsoft Excel provides 4 comparison operates whose names are self-explanatory:

  • Greater than (>)
  • Greater than or equal to (>=)
  • Less than (<)
  • Less than or equal to (<=)

Most often, Excel comparison operators are used with numbers, date and time values. For example:

=A1>20 Returns TRUE if a number in cell A1 is greater than 20, FALSE otherwise.
=A1>=(B1/2) Returns TRUE if a number in cell A1 is greater than or equal to the quotient of the division of B1 by 2, FALSE otherwise.
=A1<DATEVALUE("12/1/2014") Returns TRUE if a date in cell A1 is less than 1-Dec-2014, FALSE otherwise.
=A1<=SUM(B1:D1) Returns TRUE if a number in cell A1 is less than or equal to the sum of values in cells B1:D1, FALSE otherwise.

Using Excel comparison operators with text values

In theory, you can also use the greater than, greater than or equal to operators as well as their less than counterparts with text values. For example, if cell A1 contains "apples" and B1 contains "bananas", guess what the formula =A1>B1 will return? Congratulations to those who've staked on FALSE : )

When comparing text values, Microsoft Excel ignores their case and compares the values symbol by symbol, "a" being considered the lowest text value and "z" - the highest text value.

So, when comparing the values of "apples" (A1) and "bananas" (B1), Excel starts with their first letters "a" and "b", respectively, and since "b" is greater than "a", the formula =A1>B1 returns FALSE.

If the first letters are the same, then the 2nd letters are compared, if they happen to be identical too, then Excel gets to the 3rd, 4th letters and so on. For example, if A1 contained "apples" and B1 contained "agave", the formula =A1>B1 would return TRUE because "p" is greater than "g".
Using Excel comparison operators with text values

At first sight, the use of comparison operators with text values seems to have very little practical sense, but you never know what you might need in the future, so probably this knowledge will prove helpful to someone.

Common uses of logical operators in Excel

In real work, Excel logical operators are rarely used on their own. Agree, the Boolean values TRUE and FALSE they return, though very true (excuse the pun), are not very meaningful. To get more sensible results, you can use logical operators as part of Excel functions or conditional formatting rules, as demonstrated in the below examples.

1. Using logical operators in arguments of Excel functions

When it comes to logical operators, Excel is very permissive and allows using them in parameters of many functions. One of the most common uses is found in Excel IF function where the comparison operators can help to construct a logical test, and the IF formula will return an appropriate result depending on whether the test evaluates to TRUE or FALSE. For example:

=IF(A1>=B1, "OK", "Not OK")

This simple IF formula returns OK if a value in cell A1 is greater than or equal to a value in cell B1, "Not OK" otherwise.

And here's another example:

=IF(A1<>B1, SUM(A1:C1), "")

The formula compares the values in cells A1 and B1, and if A1 is not equal to B1, the sum of values in cells A1:C1 is returned, an empty string otherwise.

Excel logical operators are also widely used in special IF functions such as SUMIF, COUNTIF, AVERAGEIF and their plural counterparts that return a result based on a certain condition or multiple conditions.

You can find a wealth of formula examples in the following tutorials:

2. Using Excel logical operators in mathematical calculations

Of course, Excel functions are very powerful, but you don't always have to use them to achieve the desired result. For example, the results returned by the following two formulas are identical:

IF function: =IF(B2>C2, B2*10, B2*5)

Formula with logical operators: =(B2>C2)*(B2*10)+(B2<=C2)*(B2*5)
Using Excel logical operators in mathematical calculations

I guess the IF formula is easier to interpret, right? It tells Excel to multiply a value in cell B2 by 10 if B2 is greater than C2, otherwise the value in B1 is multiplied by 5.

Now, let's analyze what the 2nd formula with the greater than and less than or equal to logical operators does. It helps to know that in mathematical calculations Excel does equate the Boolean value TRUE to 1, and FALSE to 0. Keeping this in mind, let's see what each of the logical expressions actually returns.

If a value in cell B2 is greater than a value in C2, then the expression B2>C2 is TRUE, and consequently equal to 1. On the other hand, B2<=C2 is FALSE and equal to 0. So, given that B2>C2, our formula undergoes the following transformation:
Formula with logical operators

Since any number multiplied by zero gives zero, we can cast away the second part of the formula after the plus sign. And because any number multiplied by 1 is that number, our complex formula turns into a simple =B2*10 that returns the product of multiplying B2 by 10, which is exactly what the above IF formula does : )

Obviously, if a value in cell B2 is less than in C2, then the expression B2>C2 evaluates to FALSE (0) and B2<=C2 to TRUE (1), meaning that the reverse of the described above will occur.

3. Logical operators in Excel conditional formatting

Another common use of logical operators is found in Excel Conditional Formatting that lets you quickly highlight the most important information in a spreadsheet.

For example, the following simple rules highlight selected cells or entire rows in your worksheet depending on a value in column A:

Less than (orange): =A1<5

Greater than (green): =A1>20
Using logical operator in Excel conditional formatting

For the detailed-step-by-step instructions and rule examples, please see the following articles:

As you see, the use of logical operators in Excel is intuitive and easy. In the next article, we are going to learn the nuts and bolts of Excel logical functions that allow performing more than one comparison in a formula. Please stay tuned and thank you for reading!

Table of contents

1256 comments

  1. I'm not sure about this problem, I can't decide what the answer is. If Jeremy is selling m of his models on the Internet for $12.50 each, then which one would describe the amount he will be paid? Is it a)$12-m. or b)$12.50 divided by m. or is it c) m times 12.50. PLEASE HELP I'M SO CONFUSED

  2. Hi,

    I have these commission Payout % :
    10% Of revenue for reaching target
    12% Exceeding target by ≥ 10%
    14% Exceeding target by ≥ 20%

    for example if the :
    Revenue = £2,474
    Target = £2,000
    To Target % = 124%

    How can excel automatically calculate "Commission payable" using the "If FUNCTION" ?

    Thank you a lot for your help.

  3. Hi, im trying to get the criteria for this: i want to get the number of ranges that falls in 31-60 days. Or should i say "less than or equal to 60 but not less than 31" ???????

    Formula: COUNTIF(ranges,"___________")

    Hope you can help me.. Thank you very much.

  4. Svetlana,

    I whant to compare and take the value of a cell, but this have a restriction,

    where

    A "If the material is +45kg or -100kg = $2.50/kg"
    B "If the material is +100kg or -250kg = $2.00/kg"
    C "If the material is +250kg or -500kg = $1.5/kg"

    My bulks have weight as:

    Bulk A = 89 kg
    Bulk B = 184 kg
    Bulk C = 349 kg

    How can I use a formula that can take the correct value/kg?

  5. I need a formula where a retainer payment is less than $5,000, the referral fee would be 25%; if the retainer is more than $5,000, then the referral fee would be 33%.

  6. Hi,

    Need some help:
    Want to leave H3 blank if K3 is less than 1.
    Want to use calculation =K3*1.2-G3 if K3 is greater or equal to 1

    What I have so far:
    =IF(K3>+,"",(K3*1.2-G3))

  7. Hye,
    How if I want put two string condition? I'm using this [=AND ($Q9="Open" + $I9="A")] but its not working.

    refer to: 3. Logical operators in Excel conditional formatting

    • Hi Aqilah,

      Here's the correct syntax:

      =AND($Q9="Open", $I9="A")

  8. Hello

    i have a some Data and i want to achieve this formula can you please help.

    if Cell A1="A,B,C,D" and B1='B,C,D,A then C1="Pass" Else Fail )

    thanks

  9. Having trouble getting a formula to work that will give me an outcome for a number between two values, tried this but no luck, what am I missing:

    =IF((A1<=100),11,0)+IF(100.1<=A1<=140,12,0)

    I want it to show "11" if the number in A1 is less than or equal to 100, I want it to show 12 if between 100.1 and 140.

    Thanks.

    • Never mind the last post, I figured it out.

      Thanks,
      Avon

      • Hi I too am trying to solve this may I ask how you did it

        Thanks

        • Hi Chris,

          You can use nested if's, like this:

          =IF(A1<=100, 11, IF(A1<=140,12,0))

  10. Hi All,

    I have the following problem:

    A2=First name, B2=Last name, B3=Full name - for example:

    A2=Joe, B2=Hart, B3=Joe Hart

    What i need is if B3 contains B2 = OK - unfortunately i can only find the exact formula but not an partial recognition.

    Hope you can help me somehow. Thanks

    • Hello Joe,

      The IF function does not recognize wildcard chars, therefore you have to use isnumber/search like this:

      =IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(B2,B3)), "OK", "")

  11. If column C1=B1 then show the value of C1. How is this done?

  12. I am trying to subtract 1 from time if the sum is greater than 5.. So I am using as example =SUM(G5-F5)*24-1 now I only want to subtract 1 if the number is greater than 5. Essentially I am doing a schedule that will calculate hours worked and will automatically subtract 1 hour for a lunch if the person has worked 5 hours to get a lunch..

  13. hello mam,
    when we can use
    if(exact(cell 1,cell 2),"true value","false value")
    formula or drag the mouse than both cell value increase but i want only cell 2 value increase or cell 1 stable.

    thanx

    • Hello BRIJESH,

      To fix a cell reference, put the $ sign in front of the column letter and row number, like $A$1. For the detailed explanation about absolute and relative cell references, please check out the following tutorial: Why use dollar sign ($) in Excel formulas

  14. please help,

    can u give the formula,, my problem is, 1f the cell A is less than .5 the result should be, "NOT CORRECT" statement, but if cell A is higher .5 the result is CORRECT

    • Hello Axel,

      Here is the formula:
      =IF(A1<5, "NOT CORRECT", "CORRECT")

  15. Hi Svetlana,

    I need to put formula for below condition
    IF A Scores 0-19% ,He gets -20 Marks
    A Scores 20-39%,He gets -15 Marks
    A Scores 40-50%,He gets -10 Marks.

    Kindly help me out with formula.

  16. IF (E11:E:26<299999,"1500",600000,"5000")
    Not sure why it changed my formula

    • Hello Heather,

      Our blog engine sometimes mangles formulas in comments, sorry for that.

      As for the IF formula, write it for one cell (E11) rather than for a range, and then copy the formula down to other cells. If you use relative cell references (without the $ sign), Excel will properly adjust the formula for each row. So, here goes the formula:

      =IF(E11>=600000, 5000, IF(E11>=300000, 3000, 1500))

  17. I'm trying to figure out a formula in excel. I'm trying to say if E11:E26 is 299,999 and under then place 1500 in cell, if E11:E26 is 300,000-599,999 then place 3000 in cell, if 600000 and over place 5000 in cell. I can't get equation.. This is what I have
    IF(E11:E26=300000,"3000",>600000,"5000")

    Where am I making the mistake?

  18. hello
    I need a pretty complicated formula.
    We deal with traveling nurses and their hours and housing.
    I'm needing to know how to calculate if cell A is equal to or great than cell B then cell C stays the same. But is cell A is less than cell B then cell C will be lowering.
    So, if cell A is less than B the equation we use (on paper lol) is A/B=Total then we take the total x C = The actual total I'm needing

    • Hello Liz,

      If my understanding of the task is correct, you can use the following formula:
      =IF(A1>=B1, C1, A1/B1*C1)

  19. I want salary sheet in this format e.g when we write its designation its daily wage rate is automatically fullfilled.
    WE insert computer update
    computer operator 500
    Clerk 400

  20. I have different value in colum A, I like to put a formula in colum B1 if A1 below 70 than show "a" if between 71 to 90 than show "b" and above 91 than show C

Post a comment



Thank you for your comment!
When posting a question, please be very clear and concise. This will help us provide a quick and relevant solution to
your query. We cannot guarantee that we will answer every question, but we'll do our best :)