Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Counting Unique Values.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 27, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Sometimes you need to know the number of unique values in a range of cells. For instance, suppose that an instructor was teaching the following classes:
104-120 104-101 104-119 104-120
In this case there are three unique values. There is no intuitive worksheet function that will return a count of unique values, which makes one think that a user-defined function would be the logical approach. However, you can use an array formula to very easily derive the desired information. Follow these steps:
=SUM(1/COUNTIF(MyRange,MyRange))
{=SUM(1/COUNTIF(MyRange,MyRange))}
That's it! The cell now contains the number of unique name values in the specified range. This approach is not case-sensitive, so if you have two values that differ only in their capitalization (ThisName vs. THISNAME), they are both counted as a single unique value. In addition, there can be no blank cells in the range. (Having a blank cell returns a #DIV/0 error from the formula.)
If your particular needs require that your list contain blanks (but you don't want them counted) and you want the evaluation to be case-sensitive, then you must turn to a macro. The following macro, CountUnique, will do the trick:
Function CountUnique(ByVal MyRange As Range) As Integer
Dim Cell As Range
Dim J As Integer
Dim iNumCells As Integer
Dim iUVals As Integer
Dim sUCells() As String
iNumCells = MyRange.Count
ReDim sUCells(iNumCells) As String
iUVals = 0
For Each Cell In MyRange
If Cell.Text > "" Then
For J = 1 To iUVals
If sUCells(J) = Cell.Text Then
Exit For
End If
Next J
If J > iUVals Then
iUVals = iUVals + 1
sUCells(iUVals) = Cell.Text
End If
End If
Next Cell
CountUnique = iUVals
End Function
Simply put an equation similar to the following in a cell:
=CountUnique(MyRange)
The value returned is the number of unique values, not counting blanks, in the range.
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2337) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Counting Unique Values.
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