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Excel count if not blank: which function gives which number

By Alberto Gulotta · Updated 26 September 2026 · 14 min read

To make Excel count if not blank, use =COUNTA(B2:B20) for anything at all in the cell, or =COUNTIFS(B2:B20,"<>") as another way to count cells that are not empty, which is the form Exceljet gives. A second condition goes inside the same COUNTIFS. One catch decides which number you get: a formula that returns empty text is counted as filled.

1. Decide what a blank means in your column. A cell nobody has typed in, or a cell that looks empty because a formula put nothing there? COUNTA and COUNTIFS count the two differently; COUNTBLANK counts both.
2. For anything at all in the cell, use COUNTA. =COUNTA(B2:B20). Microsoft: it counts cells containing any type of information, and does not count empty cells.
3. As another way to count cells that are not empty, use COUNTIFS. =COUNTIFS(B2:B20,"<>") is Exceljet’s form, and the same function takes a second condition without changing shape: =COUNTIFS(B2:B20,"<>",C2:C20,"London") counts the rows where B is not empty — formulas returning "" included — and C says London.
4. To count the blanks instead, use COUNTBLANK. =COUNTBLANK(B2:B20). The Remark on that page is the line to read before you trust it against the one above.
5. Add the two numbers and compare them with the height of the range. Put =COUNTA(B2:B20) and =COUNTBLANK(B2:B20) side by side and compare their total with =ROWS(B2:B20). If the total comes out higher, some cell is counted on both sides — in the table, the formula returning empty text — and the section below is the reason.

Why the two numbers are both right. It helps to read the two functions as asking different questions rather than the same one from opposite ends. COUNTA asks whether the cell holds anything — and a formula is something, whatever it returns. COUNTBLANK asks whether the cell is empty or has a formula that returns empty text. The difference is not “shows nothing”: a cell with a single space shows nothing on screen, but it holds text, and Exceljet is explicit that spaces are not counted as blank. Once the question is stated that way the overlap stops being a bug and becomes a choice: if a formula returning empty text should count as done, COUNTA is the one; if it should count as still to do, COUNTBLANK is.

Where this answer stops. The COUNTA column of the table is what Microsoft describes. The COUNTIFS column applies Exceljet’s reading of “<>”, cells “not equal to nothing”, because none of the Microsoft pages read here describes that criterion on its own. The COUNTBLANK column is Microsoft’s for the empty, empty-text and zero rows and Exceljet’s for the cells marked so. Each page is named in the notes with the versions it declares. This page does not cover SUMIF and conditional totals, which add rather than count; it does not teach DCOUNTA and the criteria range, which Microsoft documents separately; and it does not cover counting inside a filtered list. Nor does it cover Google Sheets.

Not covered here. It does not cover SUMIF or SUMIFS, which add the values rather than count the rows.

It does not teach DCOUNTA and the criteria range, which Microsoft documents on their own pages and which this guide only names.

And it does not cover counting inside a filtered list, or Google Sheets. What holds instead is simple: the counts under COUNTA are Microsoft’s, those under COUNTIFS apply Exceljet’s reading of “<>”, and those under COUNTBLANK are Microsoft’s except the cells marked Exceljet.