## Percent Change

#### How do I calculate percent change?

Great question! We can use this formula to calculate percent change:

${\color{#7209b7}\text{percent change}} = \frac{({\color{#3254ec}\text{final value}} - {\color{#d90866}\text{initial value}}) \times 100}{{\color{#d90866}\text{initial value}}}$

A positive answer indicates a percent increase, and a negative answer indicates a percent decrease.

### The Percent Change Equation

When you go shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you’ll probably see coupons like “$50\%$ off select items!” or “$25\%$ off your entire order!” You might find yourself wondering, what do these mean exactly?

The coupons in the GIF above are examples of percent change. Any time we have a number that changes, we can use the percent change formula below to determine how big that change was.

The following fraction gives us what portion of the initial value changed in decimal form:

$\frac{{\color{#3254ec}\text{final}} - {\color{#d90866}\text{initial}}}{{\color{#d90866}\text{initial}}}$

We know we need to multiply decimals by $100$ to change them to percents, so the percent change formula is equal to:

${\color{#7209b7}\text{percent change}} = \frac{({\color{#3254ec}\text{final value}} - {\color{#d90866}\text{initial value}}) \times 100}{{\color{#d90866}\text{initial value}}}$

Check out our Percent Change Calculator below for examples of different ways we can use the percent change formula to solve for percent change, final value, and initial value: