Percentage points vs percent change: compute both
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3A rate moved from 40% to 45% — is that 5% or 12.5%? Both, and the difference matters.
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel | =B2-A2 | Percentage POINTS: plain subtraction of the two rates. Relative percent change: =(B2-A2)/A2. |
| Google Sheets | =B2-A2 | Identical. |
| LibreOffice Calc | =B2-A2 | Identical. |
How it works
Subtracting the rates gives percentage POINTS (45% − 40% = 5 points — the honest way to report a rate change); dividing that gap by the starting rate gives relative percent change (5/40 = 12.5% — the headline-friendly number). Both are correct; mixing the labels is how a 5-point rise gets reported as "12.5% growth". Finance sidesteps the ambiguity with basis points: multiply the point difference by 10,000 (here, 500 bps).
Verified, not just documented
We ran =ROUND((B2-A2)/A2,4) in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned 0.125 — exactly the expected result. Every formula here is confirmed by actually executing it.