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.
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 use the SUMIF function in Excel

 Excel SUMIFS and SUMIF with multiple criteria

How to calculate percent

change 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 percentage change

(percentage increase / decrease)
To calculate percent change between values A and B, use the
following formula:
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 percentage change
formula (aka Excel percentage increase formula) in your
spreadsheets.

Example 1. Calculating percent change between

2 columns
Suppose that you have the last month prices in column B and
this month prices in column C. Then you can enter the
following formula in cell D2 to calculate percentage change in
your Excel sheet:
=(C2-B2)/B2

This percent change formula calculates the percentage

increase / decrease in this month (column C) comparted to
last month (column B).
After copying the formula to other rows, remember to click
the Percent Style button on the ribbon to display decimals as
percentages and you will get a result similar to what you see
in the screenshot below. In this example, positive percentages
that show percentage increase are formatted in usual black,
while the negative percentages (percent decrease) are
formatted in red by using the technique explained in this tip.
Example 2. Calculating percentage change
between rows
In case you have one column of numbers, say column C that
lists weekly or monthly sales, you can calculate percentage
change using this formula:
=(C3-C2)/C2

Where C2 is the 1st and C3 is the 2nd cell with data.

Note. Please pay attention that you should skip the first row
with data and put your Excel percentage formula into the
2nd cell, which is D3 in this example.
After applying the percent format to the column with the
percent change formula, you will get the following result:

If you want to calculate percentage change compared to a

certain cell, then you need to fix the reference to that cell by
using the absolute cell reference with the $ sign, e.g. $C$2.
For instance, here is the Excel percentage change formula
that calculates the percent increase / decrease for each
month compared to January (C2):
=(C3-$C$2)/$C$2

When you drag the formula down to copy it to other cells, the
absolute reference ($C$2) will stay the same, while the
relative reference (C3) will change to C4, C5 and so on.