How to calculate CAGR (compound annual growth rate)
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3Work out the average yearly growth rate between a starting and ending value.
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel | =(B2/A2)^(1/C2)-1 | A2=start value, B2=end value, C2=years. Or the built-in =RRI(C2,A2,B2). |
| Google Sheets | =(B2/A2)^(1/C2)-1 | Identical; RRI also available. |
| LibreOffice Calc | =(B2/A2)^(1/C2)-1 | Identical; RRI also available. |
How it works
CAGR is (end/start)^(1/years) − 1: doubling in 10 years is 2^(1/10) − 1 ≈ 7.18% per year — the steady rate that would produce the same result. Format as a percentage. It smooths over the bumps by design, which is both its point and its limitation: volatile year-to-year paths with the same endpoints give the same CAGR. RRI(periods,start,end) is the same math built in.
Verified, not just documented
We ran =ROUND((B2/A2)^(1/C2)-1,4) in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned 0.0718 — exactly the expected result. Every formula here is confirmed by actually executing it.