Percentage Change Calculator
Percentage increase or decrease between an old value and a new value.
Percentage Change Calculator
| Absolute change | 25.00 |
| Percentage change | 50.00% |
| Direction | Increase |
Going from 50 to 75 is an increase of 25, which is a 50% increase — because 25 is half of the starting value of 50.
Percentage change measures how much a value has grown or shrunk relative to where it started. It is the standard way to describe price rises, salary changes, growth rates and discounts over time.
Enter the original value and the new value. The calculator returns the absolute change, the percentage change, and whether it is an increase or a decrease. A negative percentage change always means the value went down.
The formula
Worked example
Going from 50 to 75 is an increase of 25, which is a 50% increase — because 25 is half of the starting value of 50.
The example is pre-loaded in the result panel — press Calculate with your own numbers to replace it.
Frequently asked questions
Why is a rise from 50 to 75 a 50% increase, but a fall from 75 to 50 only 33.33%?
Percentage change is always measured against the starting value. The rise is 25 out of 50 (50%); the fall is 25 out of 75 (33.33%). The base is different, so the percentages differ.
Can percentage change exceed 100%?
Increases can — going from 40 to 120 is a 200% increase. A decrease can never exceed 100% for a positive quantity, because a value cannot fall by more than all of itself.
What is the difference between percent and percentage points?
If a rate rises from 4% to 5%, that is a 1 percentage point rise but a 25% relative increase. News reports often confuse the two — this calculator measures the relative change.
Category: Math calculators