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How to Calculate Percentage Increase (Formula and Examples)

2026-10-01

To calculate percentage increase, subtract the original value from the new value, divide the difference by the original value, and multiply the result by 100. This formula is commonly used to calculate salary raises, revenue growth, investment gains, and price increases.

Percentage Increase = ((New Value − Original Value) ÷ Original Value) × 100

You can also use our free Percentage Increase Calculator to get the answer instantly.

This guide covers what percentage increase actually measures, the formula behind it, a full step-by-step example, common benchmarks for salary raises, and the most frequent mistakes people make when calculating it by hand.

What is percentage increase?

Percentage increase measures how much a value has grown compared to its starting amount. It converts a raw difference, like an extra $5,000 in salary or an extra $20 in price, into a percentage that's easy to compare across different starting values.

This makes it useful across a wide range of situations:

Here's a simple example of what percentage increase looks like in practice:

$50,000 → $55,000

The value increased by 10%. The rest of this guide shows exactly how that number is calculated.

Percentage increase formula

The full formula has three parts:

Percentage Increase = ((New Value − Original Value) ÷ Original Value) × 100

Original value. This is the starting amount, before any change. In a salary example, it's your old salary. In a price example, it's the previous price.

New value. This is the ending amount, after the change has occurred. It's your new salary, the new price, or the updated figure you're comparing against the original.

Difference. This is simply new value minus original value, the raw amount of increase before it's converted into a percentage.

Once you have the difference, dividing it by the original value and multiplying by 100 converts that raw number into a percentage you can compare across different situations, regardless of how large or small the original value was.

Step-by-step example

Here's the full process broken into three steps, using a salary raise as the example.

Example salary raise

Original Salary: $50,000
New Salary:      $55,000

Step 1: Find the difference

Subtract the original value from the new value:

55,000 − 50,000 = 5,000

Step 2: Divide by the original value

Divide that difference by the original value:

5,000 ÷ 50,000 = 0.10

Step 3: Multiply by 100

Multiply the result by 100 to convert it into a percentage:

0.10 × 100 = 10%

Result: 10% increase. The salary grew from $50,000 to $55,000, which represents a 10% increase over the original amount.

Percentage increase examples

Here's how the same formula plays out across a range of different values:

Original Value New Value Percentage Increase
$40,000 $44,000 10%
$50,000 $55,000 10%
$60,000 $66,000 10%
$100 $120 20%
$500 $600 20%
$1,000 $1,250 25%

Notice that the dollar amount of the increase varies quite a bit across these rows, from $4,000 up to $250, but the percentage stays consistent within each group. This is exactly why percentage increase is useful: it lets you compare growth across very different starting points on equal footing.

How to calculate a salary raise percentage

The formula works exactly the same way when applied specifically to a raise. Here's an example:

Current Salary: $48,000
New Salary:     $52,800

Calculation:

(52,800 − 48,000) ÷ 48,000 × 100

Working through each step:

52,800 − 48,000 = 4,800
4,800 ÷ 48,000 = 0.10
0.10 × 100 = 10%

Result: 10% raise. If you'd rather skip the manual steps entirely, the Percentage Increase Calculator returns the same result instantly, along with the dollar amount of the increase.

Common percentage increase benchmarks

Once you know your percentage increase, it helps to know how that number is generally interpreted, particularly for salary raises:

Increase Meaning
3% Typical annual raise
5% Strong raise
10% Significant raise
15% Major raise
20%+ Often promotion-related

These benchmarks are a general guide, not a fixed rule. Actual increases vary by employer, industry, role, and economic conditions, so a 5% raise might be considered excellent in one company or field and fairly ordinary in another. For a deeper look at what counts as reasonable in different situations, see our guides on how much a 5% raise is worth and how much a 10% raise is worth, or check the average percentage raise guide for a broader benchmark.

More percentage increase examples by category

The formula stays exactly the same no matter what the numbers represent. Here's how it applies across a few common real-world categories beyond salary.

Revenue growth

A business comparing this year's revenue to last year's can use the same three-step process:

Last Year's Revenue: $100,000
This Year's Revenue: $125,000

Step 1: 125,000 − 100,000 = 25,000
Step 2: 25,000 ÷ 100,000 = 0.25
Step 3: 0.25 × 100 = 25%

Result: 25% revenue growth. This figure is one of the most common metrics businesses track year over year, and it uses the exact same formula as a salary raise.

Price increase

If a product's price rises, the same formula shows exactly how much more expensive it's become in percentage terms:

Old Price: $40
New Price: $46

Step 1: 46 − 40 = 6
Step 2: 6 ÷ 40 = 0.15
Step 3: 0.15 × 100 = 15%

Result: 15% price increase. This kind of calculation is useful for comparing price changes across products with very different starting prices, since a $6 increase means something very different on a $40 item than it would on a $400 item.

Investment growth

An investment that grows in value over time can be measured the same way:

Initial Investment: $2,000
Current Value:      $2,300

Step 1: 2,300 − 2,000 = 300
Step 2: 300 ÷ 2,000 = 0.15
Step 3: 0.15 × 100 = 15%

Result: 15% investment growth. Whether the underlying value is a salary, a price, revenue, or an investment, the formula itself never changes, only the two numbers you plug in.

Quick ways to estimate percentage increase without a calculator

Sometimes you just need a fast, rough estimate rather than an exact figure. A few mental shortcuts can help.

Round to friendly numbers. If your original value is close to a round number, like $49,500 instead of $50,000, rounding first makes the mental math easier and still gets you very close to the accurate answer.

Use 10% as a building block. Finding 10% of a number is simple: just move the decimal point one place to the left. From there, you can estimate other percentages by scaling that 10% figure up or down. For example, 5% is half of 10%, and 20% is double 10%.

Check your answer against the benchmarks. If you calculate a raise and the result seems unusually high or low compared to the common benchmarks covered earlier in this guide, it's worth double-checking your math, particularly the new-value-as-base mistake covered in the next section, which is the most common source of errors.

These shortcuts are useful for a fast sanity check, but for anything you need to rely on precisely, like confirming an actual raise or a financial report, it's worth running the full calculation or using the Percentage Increase Calculator to avoid any rounding error creeping into the final number.

Percentage increase vs percentage change

"Percentage increase" and "percentage change" are related but not identical, and it's worth understanding the distinction.

Percentage increase is used specifically when a value grows. For example:

$100 → $120

This represents a straightforward percentage increase, calculated with the same formula covered above.

Percentage decrease is used when a value falls instead of growing. For example:

$100 → $80

Here, the value has gone down, not up. The underlying formula is the same, (New Value − Original Value) ÷ Original Value × 100, but the result comes out negative, which signals a decrease rather than an increase. In this example, the calculation gives −20%, reflecting a 20% decrease rather than a 20% gain.

"Percentage change" is the broader term that covers both cases, increases and decreases alike, while "percentage increase" specifically refers to situations where the value has grown. Keeping this distinction in mind helps avoid confusion when a result comes out negative and you're not sure whether that reflects an error or simply a decrease.

Common mistakes when calculating percentage increase

A few recurring errors come up when people calculate percentage increase by hand.

Mistake 1: Using the new value as the base. The original value, not the new value, always goes in the denominator. Using the wrong base number gives an inaccurate result:

Incorrect: 5,000 ÷ 55,000
Correct:   5,000 ÷ 50,000

Dividing by the new value instead of the original understates the percentage increase, since the denominator is larger than it should be.

Mistake 2: Forgetting to multiply by 100. Dividing the difference by the original value gives a decimal, like 0.10, not a percentage. Skipping the final step of multiplying by 100 leaves the answer in the wrong format, 0.10 instead of 10%.

Mistake 3: Mixing increase and decrease calculations. When comparing two values, it's easy to accidentally treat a decrease as an increase, or vice versa, especially when working through several numbers in a row. Double-checking which value is larger, the original or the new, before applying the formula helps avoid sign errors in the final result.

Use our percentage increase calculator

Working through the formula by hand is useful for understanding the logic, but it's easy to make a small error, especially the new-value-as-base mistake covered above. Our Percentage Increase Calculator handles the math for you.

Enter your original value and new value to instantly calculate:

All without doing the math manually. The calculator also shows the dollar amount of the increase alongside the percentage, so you get the full picture in one place.

Related career tools

If you're calculating a raise or comparing financial figures, these tools can help:

Frequently asked questions

What is the formula for percentage increase? Percentage Increase = ((New Value − Original Value) ÷ Original Value) × 100.

How do I calculate a salary increase percentage? Subtract your old salary from your new salary, divide by the old salary, then multiply by 100. For example, a raise from $48,000 to $52,800 works out to a 10% increase.

How much is a 10% raise? A 10% raise on a $50,000 salary equals $5,000, resulting in a new salary of $55,000.

What is a good percentage increase? A good percentage increase depends on the situation, industry, and goals. Salary increases vary across organizations and roles, with routine annual raises often falling between 2% and 5%, while promotions or market adjustments can run higher.

Can I use percentage increase for prices and revenue? Yes. Percentage increase calculations work for salaries, prices, revenue, investments, and many other financial values, since the formula only depends on an original value and a new value, not on what those values represent.