=(new_value-old_value)/old_value
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.
How the formula works
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 -0.1193:
=(69000-78350)/78350
=-9350/78350
=-0.1193
Because cell E6 is formatted using the Percentage number format (with no decimals), Excel displays the final result as -12%
