How to calculate attendance percentage
Attendance percentage is the share of working days (or classes held) that someone was actually present. The attendance percentage formula is:
Example: an employee was present for 22 days in a month with 26 working days. 22 ÷ 26 = 0.846, so their attendance percentage is 84.6%. For a student who attended 38 of 48 lectures, it is 38 ÷ 48 × 100 = 79.2%.
A few rules keep the number fair and comparable:
- Only count working days. Leave out weekends, weekly offs and public holidays.
- Count half days as 0.5. Two half days add up to one full day present.
- Late is still present. Track lateness separately rather than marking it absent.
- Choose a leave policy once. Either count approved leave as absent or leave it out of working days, and apply it the same way to everyone.
The 75% attendance rule
Many schools, colleges and universities require at least 75% attendance to sit final exams, and many employers use a similar threshold in their attendance policies. 75% means attending at least three out of every four classes or working days. Some institutions set it higher, at 80% or 85%, so enter your own target in the calculator above.
To see how many classes you need to attend to get back to 75%:
Example: 30 of 45 classes attended is 66.7%. To reach 75% you need (33.75 − 30) ÷ 0.25 = 15 more classes in a row, which brings you to 45 of 60.
Minimum classes to attend for 75% attendance
| Total classes | Attend at least (75%) | Can miss at most |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | 15 | 5 |
| 30 | 23 | 7 |
| 40 | 30 | 10 |
| 50 | 38 | 12 |
| 60 | 45 | 15 |
| 80 | 60 | 20 |
| 100 | 75 | 25 |
| 120 | 90 | 30 |
How many classes can I bunk?
If you are already above 75%, the number of classes or days you can skip (bunk) and still stay at the minimum is:
Example: with 45 of 55 classes attended (81.8%), you can miss 45 ÷ 0.75 − 55 = 5 more classes and still be at exactly 75%. This assumes no new classes are held in the meantime. In practice every missed lecture also adds to the total held, which the formula already accounts for.
Attendance percentage chart
A quick lookup for common monthly working days. Find how many days someone was present on the left and read across to their attendance percentage.
| Days present | 20 working days | 22 working days | 24 working days | 26 working days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | – | – | – | 100.0% |
| 25 | – | – | – | 96.2% |
| 24 | – | – | 100.0% | 92.3% |
| 23 | – | – | 95.8% | 88.5% |
| 22 | – | 100.0% | 91.7% | 84.6% |
| 21 | – | 95.5% | 87.5% | 80.8% |
| 20 | 100.0% | 90.9% | 83.3% | 76.9% |
| 19 | 95.0% | 86.4% | 79.2% | 73.1% |
| 18 | 90.0% | 81.8% | 75.0% | 69.2% |
| 17 | 85.0% | 77.3% | 70.8% | 65.4% |
| 16 | 80.0% | 72.7% | 66.7% | 61.5% |
| 15 | 75.0% | 68.2% | 62.5% | 57.7% |
| 14 | 70.0% | 63.6% | 58.3% | 53.8% |
Attendance percentage formula in Excel and Google Sheets
If days present are in column B and working days in column C, use:
If your register uses codes such as P for present and A for absent, count them first with COUNTIF. For a row where days 1 to 31 are in columns C to AG:
Our free monthly attendance sheet template has these formulas built in, including half days, late marks and leave.
Employee attendance rate and absenteeism
For a team, add up everyone’s days present and divide by everyone’s working days. The absenteeism rate is the other side of the same number:
A team of 10 people with 22 working days each has 220 working days in total. If they were absent for 11 of them, the absenteeism rate is 11 ÷ 220 = 5% and the attendance rate is 95%.
Doing this by hand for 30 people every month is where mistakes creep in. The attendance report generator works out every employee’s attendance percentage, absences and late marks straight from your Excel sheet. If you’d rather not keep spreadsheets at all, Clocked Live records check-ins automatically and shows attendance live.