How to calculate percentage change or difference between two numbers in Excel?

This article is talking about calculating percentage change or difference between two numbers in Excel.

Calculate percentage change/difference between two numbers with formula

As below screenshot shown, you need to calculate the percentage change between new number 94 and old number 80. The formula =(new_value-old_value)/old_value can help you quickly calculate the percentage change between two numbers. Please do as follows.

1. Select a blank cell for locating the calculated percentage change, then enter formula =(A3-A2)/A2 into the Formula Bar, and then press the Enter key. See screenshot:

2. Keep selecting the result cell, then click the Percent Style button in the Number group under Home tab to format the cell as percentage. See screenshot:

Now the percentage difference between two given numbers is calculated.

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  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Stephen · 2 months ago
    Hello, Need help on how to write an formula with this situation.
    So i have a report card design to show the grade of each performance of the work output. I set a standard for a specific task in amount of 350. However, based on available volume, not all the month output can be reach to 350. Therefore, we calculated that for this month, the person can achieve their 100% goal by just reaching 174. However, that person can go beyond that number to reach 350. What i want to do here is that our grade level is showing below. If they achieve 174, they would get a grade level B which is between 95% to 105%. But in order to get to maximum 120% of grade A+, the person will need to reach 350. This is where i stuck with. So i know that if a person reaches 180, he/she would get somewhere 102 or 103%. But i dont know how to calculate this and be able to set a maximum 120% between the number of 174 and 350

    So right now if the number double from 174 to 348, the % is 200%.... but i need to set this maximum 120% only. How can i do this?

    SCORE GRADE
    0.00% -
    40.00% E-
    45.00% E
    50.00% E+
    55.00% D-
    65.00% D
    70.00% D+
    75.00% C-
    80.00% C
    85.00% C+
    90.00% B-
    95.00% B
    105.00% B+
    110.00% A-
    115.00% A
    120.00% A+
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Jeff · 3 months ago
    Percentage 'change' and percentage 'difference' are two different things. This formula represents percentage change, for example if you are are comparing values of the same statistic over time (e.g. product sales this year compared to product sales last year). Percentage difference is different. Difference can be used when comparing two different statistics to each other (e.g. Mary's annual sales compared to Martha's annual sales). Mary didn't have an increase or decrease on Martha's sales over the same time period, they were just different. To calculate percentage difference you take the absolute value of the difference between two numbers. Then divide it by the average of those two numbers and then multiple by 100 to get the percentage. For example, if the two values are 40 and 60. The difference is 20, ignoring whether it's positive or negative. The average is 50. 20/50 = .4 X 100 = 40%. The percentage increase between these two numbers, if it is an increase, would be 50%. The percentage decrease would be 33%. Close, but all very different.
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    Miguel Garcia · 4 months ago
    The formula that works in all cases is "=(new_value - old_value) / abs(old_value)"
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    J Rev · 1 years ago
    How can I chnage regular percent change into Year over Year PCH?
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    Vincent · 1 years ago
    Hi. How to count a rate : Rate -6% -15%
    Rate -10% -6% - 15%
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    Cory · 2 years ago
    if one number is zero and formula returns an error. =iferror((cell1-cell2)/cell2,0)
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      crystal · 2 years ago
      Dear Cory,
      If you want to display the result as 0 when zero exists in one cell, please apply this formula: =IF(A2<>0,(A3-A2)/A2,"0"). You can change the second 0 to any data as you need to display as result.
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    Qamarul · 2 years ago
    how to calculate price and date and convert into percentage depending on the date stated?
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    Danny · 2 years ago
    Very easy formula to calculate % diff - thanks!
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    Dev · 3 years ago
    A fair answer to the problem but what about negative numbers or cases where one on the numbers is zero - what would the formula look like in these cases?
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      guestuser · 11 months ago
      re: "cases where one on the numbers is zero "

      =IFERROR((A3-A2)/A2,0)
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      Nixon · 1 years ago
      Maybe = (A3-A2) / ABS(A2)