What is the Percentage Difference from 42 to 39?

Step by step

1. Difference: 39 − 42 = -3
2. Divide by the starting value: -3 ÷ 42 = -0.071429
3. Multiply by 100: -7.1429%

How the answer is worked out

Percentage change measures a difference against the value you started with. The value went from 42 to 39, a difference of 3. Compared with the starting value of 42, that difference is 7.1429%, so this is a 7.1429% decrease.

The new value is 92.8571% of the old one: for every 100 at the start there are now 92.8571, so 7.1429 out of every 100 have gone.

Why calculate this?

Percentage change compares a new value with an old one regardless of size: price rises, growth, discounts, score changes.

• Sales: a price cut from $42 to $39 is a 7.1429% discount.
• Weight: going from 42 to 39 kilograms is a loss of 7.1429% of the starting weight.
• Results: if a team scores 39 points this season after 42 last season, its total has dropped by 7.1429%.

A quicker way

Find 1% of the starting value: 42 ÷ 100 = 0.42. The difference of 3 is 7.1429 of those steps.

Percentage change is not the same as percentage points. If a rate moves from 42% to 39%, it changes by 3 percentage points, but by 7.1429% relative to where it started.

Check the answer

Work forwards from the start: 42 × (1 − 0.071429) = 42 × 0.928571 = 39. Getting 39 shows the answer is right.

Rounding

Rounded to a whole number the change is -7, to one decimal place -7.1 and to two decimal places -7.14. Round only at the end: rounding halfway through a calculation can change the last digit.

The formula explained

percentage change = (new value − old value) ÷ old value × 100. A positive result is an increase and a negative result is a decrease. The old value is always the base, which is why the change from A to B and from B to A are different percentages.

Another worked example: 8 to 86

1. Difference: 86 − 8 = 78
2. Divide by the starting value: 78 ÷ 8 = 9.75
3. Multiply by 100: 975%

Other ways to ask this

The same calculation is often asked in other words. All of these have the answer above:

• Percentage decrease from 42 to 39
• What percent less is 39 than 42?
• 42 to 39 as a percent change
• How much did 42 fall going to 39, in percent?
• Relative change between 42 and 39

Terms used on this page

• Old value: the starting amount, used as the base of the percentage.
• New value: the amount after the change.
• Increase: a positive change: the new value is bigger.
• Percentage point: the plain difference between two rates, not a relative change.

The answer in other forms

Related results

The other way round: Percentage difference from 39 to 42

Doing it in a spreadsheet

In Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers type =(39-42)/42*100 into any cell. Replace the numbers with cell references (for example A1 and B1) to reuse the formula for a whole column.

Common mistakes

Always divide by the starting value, not the new one. A rise from 40 to 50 is +25%, but the fall from 50 back to 40 is −20%.

Practice examples

How this answer was calculated

The result is worked out from the numbers in this page's address when the page is opened, using exact arithmetic wherever possible and rounding only for display. Nothing is copied from a printed table. If you think an answer is wrong, please tell us through the contact page and we will check it.

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