How to calculate percent change in Excel

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If you need to calculate the percentage change between two values in Excel, you can use a formula that divides the change itself by the “old” value. A classic example would be to calculate the percentage between sales last month and sales this month.

Worked Example:   How to Count Number of Characters in a Cell or Range of Cells in Excel

Formula

=(new_value-old_value)/old_value

Explanation

In the example, the active cell contains this formula:

=(D6-C6)/C6

In this case, Excel first calculates the difference between the values (the actually change in sales) then divides that result by the original, or “old” value to get the decimal value -0.3435:

=(49500-75400)/75400
=-25900/75400
=-0.3435

Note: you must format the result using Percentage number format to display the final result as -34%

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