How to calculate percentage change in Google Sheets?

Calculating percent change is one of the simplest methods of analyzing the proportional difference between two values. You can use percent change to analyze how much a value has increased or decreased from the original value.

Google Sheets is a platform where you can do this calculation. Calculating percent change in Google Sheets is simple and requires only one formula that uses basic math functions.

Before writing the formula, let’s remember what a percentage change is: it’s the difference between two values ​​divided by the original value, then multiplied by 100. The final multiplication is necessary to obtain a percentage.

Now that all of this is settled, it’s time to calculate the percentage change in Google Sheets by creating a simple formula for it.

Here, as an example, we have the grades that a group of students got on their two chemistry exams during the semester. The goal is to use percentage change to see which students have progressed, which have regressed and by how much.

1. Select the cell where you want to display the percentage change. This will be the cell D2 in our example.
2. Go to the formula bar and enter the formula below:

    =(C2-B2)/B2*100 

3. pressure Come in. Google Sheets now calculates the percent change for this student’s chemistry scores.
4. Grab the fill handle and drop it on the cells below. The percentage change for all students is now displayed.

The formula we used derives the first score (B2) of the second partition (C2), divide it by the first score (B2) to get the proportional change, then multiply it by 100 to get a percentage change.

There it is done! You can now see how far each student has progressed or fallen in their chemistry grades. A negative percentage means the student has regressed, and a positive percentage means the student has progressed.

If you don’t like the extra decimal places on percentage changes, you can remove them with formatting:

1. Select the cells that contain the percentage changes. So the cells D2 on D9 in our example.
2. Go to in the menu Format and select Number.
3. Select at the bottom of the list Custom number format.
4. Enter a zero in the text field and put a decimal point after it, followed by zeros to indicate decimals.
5. click on To apply.

The number of zeros you put after the comma determines the number of decimal places in the cell. In this example we have set 0.00 to get two decimal places.

Note that percentage changes now have rounded decimals. Your spreadsheet should look nicer! You can even go a step further and use conditional formatting in Google Sheets to automatically distinguish between negative and positive percentage changes by giving them different formatting.

While we’re on the subject, you can also use custom number formats to display numeric values ​​as percentages. So your formula won’t multiply the number by 100, but the custom number format will.

This method also allows you to round decimals and add a percent sign (%) all at once. You will thus meet three needs with a single action.

Let’s see this method in action on the same example:

1. Select the cell where you want to display the percentage change.
2. Enter the formula below in the formula bar:

    =(C2-B2)/B2 

3. pressure Come in.
4. Drag the fill handle and drop it on the cells below.

The formula we used here is the same as the previous one, except it doesn’t multiply the value by 100. You’ll notice that the results are now proportional changes, not percentages. Let’s fix it with custom formatting:

1. Select the cells that contain the proportional changes.
2. Go to in the menu Format then select Number.
3. Select the custom number format.
4. Enter a zero, a decimal point, and then more zeros in the text field to determine the decimal places.
5. Add a percent sign (%) in user-defined format.
6. click on To apply.

We used 0.000% in this example. This indicates a number, three decimal places and a percent sign. The percent sign is not purely aesthetic, it also multiplies the value by 100.

Now not only are the decimals in your percent change nicely arranged, but you also have a percent sign next to them!

Calculate currency with Google Sheets

By calculating the percentage change between two values, you can see by what percentage each value has changed from the original.

You can calculate percent change in Google Sheets using a simple formula that subtracts the two values, divides the remainder by the original value, and then multiplies it by 100.

You can also remove multiplication from your formula by using a custom number format. Now you know how to do both! Google Sheets is a wonderful web-based spreadsheet application, and the more you learn about the capabilities that Google Sheets has to offer, the more you’ll be able to utilize its full potential.