Count excel cells that are not empty

In this example, the goal is to count cells in a range that are not blank (i.e. not empty). There are several ways to go about this task, depending on your needs. The article below explains different approaches.

COUNTA function

While the COUNT function only counts numbers, the COUNTA function counts both numbers and text. This means you can use COUNTA as a simple way to count cells that are not blank. In the example shown, the formula in F6 uses COUNTA like this:

=COUNTA(C5:C16) // returns 9

Since there are nine cells in the range C5:C16 that contain values, COUNTA returns 9. COUNTA is fully automatic, so there is nothing to configure.

COUNTIFS function

You can also use the COUNTIFS function to count cells that are not blank like this:

=COUNTIFS(C5:C16,"<>") // returns 9

The «<>» operator means «not equal to» in Excel, so this formula literally means count cells not equal to nothing. Because COUNTIFS can handle multiple criteria, we can easily extend this formula to count cells that are not empty in Group «A» like this:

=COUNTIFS(B5:B16,"A",C5:C16,"<>") // returns 4

The first range/criteria pair selects cells that are in Group A only. The second range/criteria pair selects cells that are not empty. The result from COUNTIFS is 4, since there are 4 cells in Group A that are not empty. You can swap the order of the range/criteria pairs with the same result.

See also: 50 examples of formula criteria.

SUMPRODUCT function

One problem with COUNTA and COUNTIFS is that they will also count empty strings («») returned by formulas as not blank, even though these cells are intended to be blank. For example, if A1 contains 21, this formula in B1 will return an empty string:

=IF(A1>30,"Overdue","")

However, COUNTA and COUNTIFS will still count B1 as not empty. If you run into this problem, you can use the SUMPRODUCT function to count cells that are not blank like this:

=SUMPRODUCT(--(C5:C16<>""))

The expression C5:C16<>»» returns an array that contains 12 TRUE and FALSE values, and the double negative (—) converts the TRUE and FALSE values to 1s and 0s:

=SUMPRODUCT({1;1;0;1;1;0;1;1;1;0;1;1}) // returns 9

The result is 9 as before. But this formula will also ignore cells that contain formulas that return empty strings.

You can easily extend the logic used in SUMPRODUCT with other functions as needed. For example, the variant below uses the LEN function to count cells that have a length greater than zero:

=SUMPRODUCT(--(LEN(C5:C16)>0)) // returns 9

You can extend the formula to count cells that are not blank in Group A like this:

=SUMPRODUCT((LEN(C5:C16)>0)*(B5:B16="A"))

This is an example of using Boolean algebra in a formula. The double negative is no longer needed in this case because the math operation of multiplying the two arrays together automatically converts the TRUE and FALSE values to 1s and 0s:

=SUMPRODUCT({1;1;0;1;1;0;0;0;0;0;0;0}) // returns 4

The final result is 4, since there are four cells in Group A that are not blank in C5:C16.

Note: one reason the Boolean syntax above is useful is because you can drop the same logical expressions into a newer function like the FILTER function to extract cells that meet the same criteria. The SUMPRODUCT function is more versatile than RACON functions like COUNTIFS, SUMIFS, etc. and you will often see it used in formulas that solve tricky problems. You can read more about SUMPRODUCT here. 

This post will guide you how to count cells that are not blank or empty in a given range cells using a formula in Excel 2013/2016.How do I count the number of cells that are not blank in a particular range with a VBA macro in Excel. You should know that excel offers several count functions to count the number of cells within a specific range, that meet the defined criteria or conditions in Excel.

If you want to count the number of cells that are not blank or non-empty in a selected range, you can use the COUNTA function or COUNTIF function.

Method 1: Count Non-Blank or Non-empty Cells with COUNTA Function

Assuming that you have a data list in a range A1:A6, and this range has blank cells as well. And you wish to count cell without blank cells. And you can use a formula based on the COUNTA function like this:

=COUNTA(A1:B6)

The COUNTA function can be used to count the number of cells that contain numbers, text,dates or errors. And it will ignore all empty cells automatically.

Method 2: Count Non-Blank or Non-empty Cells with COUNTIF Function

You can also use another function called COUNTIF function to achieve the same result of counting the number of cells that are not blank in Excel. For example, using the following formula:

=COUNTIF(A1:B6,”<>”)

From the above image, you would see that using the COUNTIF function to count the number of non-blank or non-empty cells in the range A1:B6 and return the same results as COUNTA function.

Method 3: Count Non-Blank or Non-empty Cells with VBA Macro

You can also create an newly VBA Macro to count cells that are not empty in a given range in Excel. just do the following steps:

Step1# open your excel workbook and then click on “Visual Basic” command under DEVELOPER Tab, or just press “ALT+F11” shortcut.

Step2#  then the “Visual Basic Editor” window will appear.

Step3# click “Insert” ->”Module” to create a new module.

Step4# paste the below VBA code into the code window. Then clicking “Save” button.

Sub CountCellNotBlank()
Dim ws As Worksheet
Set ws = Worksheets("Sheet7")
ws.Range("D3") = Application.WorksheetFunction.CountA(ws.Range("A1:B6"))
End Sub

Step5: back to the current worksheet, click on Macros button under Code group. then click Run button.

Step6: let’s see the result:

• Excel COUNTIF function
  The Excel COUNTIF function will count the number of cells in a range that meet a given criteria. This function can be used to count the different kinds of cells with number, date, text values, blank, non-blanks, or containing specific characters.etc.= COUNTIF (range, criteria)…
• Excel COUNTA function
  The Excel COUNTA function counts the number of cells that are not empty in a range. The syntax of the COUNTA function is as below:= COUNTA(value1, [value2],…)…