Excel COUNT Function – How to Use (with example)

Excel COUNT function is a very basic and built-in function of the Excel COUNT family. This function counts only numeric values and skips the text ones.

Suppose that we want to make a count of a range (B2: B6) i.e. (1, 5, 7, a, b) and apply COUNT function =COUNT (B2: B6) and our result is 3. As per the rule of this function count only three numeric values and skips the text. See in the screenshot below:-

Here in this data column tree values are appearing as numeric and rest two values as text. This function will not count text values, so our total count is 3.

In this blog post, I will describe the rules of Excel COUNT Function with some examples.

Let’s learn this function from the beginning.

Below are the syntax and arguments of the COUNT function describes.

It Returns a Value

Excel COUNT Function will return counts of numeric values with a cell or range of cell.

Syntax

=COUNT (value1, [value2],….[value 255])

Arguments

value1

cell value, cell reference or a range within which we want to make a count.

[value2]

(optional) up to [value 255] more items, cell reference or a range of cells.

Things to Remember

Any arguments are numbers, dates or text representation of numbers are counted.

Logical values (TRUE/FALSE) and text representations of numbers that we type directly into the list of arguments are counted.

Any arguments that are error values or text that cannot be translated into numbers are not counted.

If the argument is an array or reference, only numbers in that array or reference are counted. Empty cells, logical values, text, or error values in the array or reference are not counted.

If the values TRUE and FALSE, appearing in the range are not counted.

Considering the above rules, I have created a chart of examples to understand the Excel COUNT function in a better way.

In the above chart, I have tried to include almost every kind of example, which may occur when we want to make a count.

Apart from these examples, Excel COUNT Function work equally when applying the function in a single range or multiple ranges. This function will give the result equally. See the below image:-