Excel PERCENTILE Function — Find Values at Any Percentile (with Examples)

What does it do?

PERCENTILE returns the value at a given percentile in a dataset. If you want to know what value sits at the 90th percentile — meaning 90% of values are below it — PERCENTILE is the formula. Used widely in salary benchmarking, healthcare wait time reporting, student performance analysis, and customer satisfaction scoring.

Syntax

=PERCENTILE(array, k)

Argument	Description
=PERCENTILE(array, k)
array required	The range of values to analyse.
k required	The percentile as a decimal between 0 and 1. Use 0.9 for the 90th percentile.

Real examples

Example 1

90th percentile of salaries

=PERCENTILE(B2:B100, 0.9)

90% of salaries fall below this value.

Example 2

Median (50th percentile)

=PERCENTILE(B2:B100, 0.5)

Same result as MEDIAN.

Example 3

25th and 75th percentile (quartiles)

=PERCENTILE(B2:B100, 0.25)

Same as QUARTILE(range,1). 25% of values fall below this point.

Example 4

Flag values above 90th percentile

=IF(B2 > PERCENTILE($B$2:$B$100, 0.9), "Top 10%", "")

Identify high performers or outliers.

Example 5

Interquartile range

=PERCENTILE(B2:B100,0.75)-PERCENTILE(B2:B100,0.25)

The spread of the middle 50% of data.

FAQ

What is the difference between PERCENTILE and PERCENTILE.INC vs PERCENTILE.EXC?

PERCENTILE is equivalent to PERCENTILE.INC which includes 0 and 1 as valid percentiles. PERCENTILE.EXC excludes the extremes and is preferred for theoretical statistics. Use PERCENTILE for most practical purposes.

How is PERCENTILE different from QUARTILE?

QUARTILE divides data into four fixed groups (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%). PERCENTILE lets you choose any percentage point. PERCENTILE(range,0.25) gives the same result as QUARTILE(range,1).

Can PERCENTILE handle non-numeric data?

No — text and empty cells are ignored. If your range has mixed data types, only numeric values are included in the calculation.

PERCENTILE in pay and performance analysis

PERCENTILE is the standard tool for pay benchmarking. When HR teams review salaries, they typically look at the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles to understand the spread of pay within a role, department, or company. A salary at the 75th percentile means 75% of people in that group earn less. A salary at the 25th percentile means only 25% earn less.

For performance management, PERCENTILE helps set relative targets. Rather than saying "achieve 1,000 sales", you might target the 75th percentile of current performance — a goal that stretches people without being unrealistic. As performance improves over time, the 75th percentile target automatically adjusts upward.

In healthcare and public services, PERCENTILE is used for waiting time reporting. "95% of patients seen within 4 hours" means the 95th percentile of waiting times should be under 4 hours. =PERCENTILE(wait_times, 0.95) returns that 95th percentile value directly.

💡 PERCENTILE vs QUARTILE

QUARTILE(range,1) = PERCENTILE(range,0.25). QUARTILE(range,3) = PERCENTILE(range,0.75). PERCENTILE is more flexible — use it when you need percentiles other than the standard 25/50/75 quartile points.

Practise this formula live

ExcelPro has exercises covering this formula across multiple tracks. Free to start.

Try exercises →

Related formulas

LARGE SMALL MEDIAN STDEV AVERAGE QUARTILE

The Excel PERCENTILE Functionexplained simply