Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Counting Non-Blank Cells.

Counting Non-Blank Cells

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 13, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365


You may already know that you can use the COUNTBLANK function to return the number of blank cells in a range. What if you want to count the number of non-blank cells in the same range? One way is to use the COUNTA function, as shown here:

=COUNTA(B1:B13)

The only problem with this formula is that it doesn't return the complementary value to what COUNTBLANK returns. In other words, the result of COUNTA added to the result of COUNTBLANK doesn't equal the total number of cells in the original range. The reason for this is that both COUNTBLANK and COUNTA treat formulas differently. COUNTBLANK includes, as blank, formulas that return a blank value. COUNTA does not consider such cells blank (even though a blank is returned), so it includes them in its count.

If you consider non-blank cells to be those that are not returned by COUNTBLANK, then you will need to use a longer formula:

=(ROWS(B1:B13)*COLUMNS(B1:B13))-COUNTBLANK(B1:B13)

This formula subtracts the COUNTBLANK result from the total number of cells in the same range.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11100) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Counting Non-Blank Cells.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Creating a Shortcut for Pasting Values

Excel's Paste Special command is used quite a bit. If you want to create some shortcuts for the command, here's some ways ...

Discover More

Visually Showing a Protection Status

Need to know if a worksheet or workbook is currently protected? Excel provides some tell-tale signs, but here are some ...

Discover More

Setting the Right Indent of a Paragraph in a Macro

Need to format your document using a macro? You can easily set the right margin for an individual paragraph by using the ...

Discover More

Solve Real Business Problems Master business modeling and analysis techniques with Excel and transform data into bottom-line results. This hands-on, scenario-focused guide shows you how to use the latest Excel tools to integrate data from multiple tables. Check out Microsoft Excel 2013 Data Analysis and Business Modeling today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Evaluating Formulas

Need a bit of help in figuring out how Excel is evaluating a particular formula? It's easy to figure out if you use the ...

Discover More

Reversing Integer Values

Do you need to reverse a series of integer values, such as 5 becomes 1, 4 becomes 2, etc.? There are several ways you can ...

Discover More

Reordering Last Name and First Name

If you've got a list of names in a column, you may want to change the order of each name. For instance, the name have the ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 2 + 8?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.