Percentages are stored as decimals — 30% is really 0.3 — so ROUND’s digit count works on the decimal, not on what you see. That means you need two more digits than you’d expect: =ROUND(A1,2) gives a whole percentage (30%), =ROUND(A1,3) gives one decimal place (30.5%), and =ROUND(A1,4) gives two (30.49%).
Once you know that, the rest follows: =ROUNDDOWN(A1,2) always rounds down to a whole percent, =ROUNDUP(A1,2) always rounds up. For the nearest 5%, use =MROUND(A1,5%).
And if you only want the figure to display rounded while keeping the exact value for calculations, don’t use a formula — select the cells and click Decrease Decimal on the Home tab, or set a custom format like 0%.
That matters on any sheet where the percentages get totalled, since a column of rounded values often won’t add to exactly 100%.
Just like numbers, you can round percentage values in Excel. A percentage is a decimal number that is formatted as a percentage. A 100% means a number value of 1. To round percentages, you can use the ROUND, ROUNDUP, and ROUNDDOWN functions. In this tutorial, you will learn to write a formula for this.
Round Percentage with ROUND Function
The below example shows the percentage value of 30.49% and 30.50%. Now, when you use the ROUND function and the 2 for the num_digits, it rounds the first percentage value to 30% and the second to 31%.
In the first value, you have .49 as a decimal value, which is why it rounds to 30%. And in the second value, you have .50 as a decimal value, and it rounds it to 31%.
Round Percentage to One Decimal
If you want to round a percentage value to one decimal, you need to use a formula just like the following:
=ROUND(A1,3)In this formula, we have used the 3 in the num_digit argument, which allows you to round the percentage with one decimal left.
Round Down the Percentage
If you want to round down a percentage, you can use the ROUNDDOWN. Just like the below example where you have the percentage 30.49%.
=ROUNDDOWN(A1,2)
=ROUNDDOWN(A2,3)In the first formula, you have 30.49%, and we have used 2 as a num_digit to round. It returns 30.00%. And in the second formula, you have 30.49%, and we have used 3 as num_digit to round. It returns 30.40% in the result.
Round Up the Percentage
In the same way, you can use the ROUNDUP to round the percentage upwards.
=ROUNDUP(A6,2)
=ROUNDUP(A7,3)Remove the Decimal Part from a Percentage
There might be a situation when you need to get rid of the decimal. You can consider the below formula for this:
=TEXT(A8,"00%")
Written by
Puneet Gogia
Microsoft MVP — Excel · Founder, Excel Champs
Twelve years of teaching Excel, and a decade before that using it as a data analyst. Every tutorial here is written from a file I actually built.