How to Raise a Number to a Power in Excel

Use POWER and the ^ operator for compound growth — and fractional powers to find the growth rate you need.

You will learn to

• Grow a deposit with POWER
• Write the same calculation with ^
• Use a fractional power to find a required rate

How it works

Excel has two ways to raise a number to a power: =POWER(1.045,10) and =1.045^10 both return 1.553. Multiply a deposit by (1+rate)^years to see what it grows to with annual compounding, for example =B2*(1+C2)^D2.

Powers also run backwards. A fractional power is a root, so =(goal/start)^(1/years)-1 gives the yearly growth rate needed to turn start into goal — the same idea as CAGR. Watch operator precedence: in Excel =-2^2 is 4, because the minus sign is applied before the power.

=B2*POWER(1+C2,D2)