Add and Subtract Percentage in Excel

Percentages can be added or subtracted in Excel like any other value. You just need to remember that 100% = 1, 50% = 0.5, etc.

In this lesson, I’ll show you how you can perform these simple arithmetic operations.

How to add percentages

Create the following table.

Let’s increase these numbers by 15%. In other words, we are going to add to numbers 15% of their value.

Use the following formula in cell C2.

Because we add percentages the result will also be in percentages. This is not the formatting we want.

Select cells from C2 to C3, navigate to Home >> Number, and change Percentage to General. This is the default Excel formatting.

This will result in the same values in both cases because 15% = 0.15.

How to subtract percentages

Subtracting percentages is similar to adding percentages. You just have to change the (+) button to (-) in our formula.

15% of 120 is 18. 120 – 12 = 102, and this is the result we get.