How to Count Blank Cells with COUNTBLANK

COUNTBLANK counts the empty cells in a range — perfect for spotting missing data and measuring how complete a report is.

You will learn to

• Count missing values in one column
• Count blanks across a whole table
• Turn blanks into a completion percentage

How it works

COUNTBLANK(range) counts the cells in a range that are empty. It also counts cells whose formula returns empty text (""), which makes it handy for checking reports where formulas leave a gap until data arrives. Cells containing 0 or a space are not blank.

COUNTBLANK works on two-dimensional ranges too, so =COUNTBLANK(B2:D11) counts every gap in a whole table. Divide by the number of cells, ROWS(range)*COLUMNS(range), to see what share of the data is missing.

=COUNTBLANK(B2:D11)