Use NUMBERVALUE() to convert European Number format -

If you deal with customers or colleagues in Europe, often you may see numbers like this:

1.433.502,50
9.324,00
3,141593

When these numbers are pasted in Excel, they become text, because Excel can’t understand them.

Here is a simple way to convert the European numbers to regular ones.

Use NUMBERVALUE() Function.

How to convert European number formats with NUMBERVALUE() ?

Let’s say you have a European format number in cell A1, something like 1.433.502,50

Syntax of NUMBERVALUE():

NUMBERVALUE() takes 3 parameters.

Number you want to convert
Decimal separator
Group separator

So, we can use =NUMBERVALUE(A1 , "," , ".") to convert number in A1 from European format.

Since , is the decimal point and . is the group separator in European format, NUMBERVALUE() returns 1433502.5

How to convert European number formats in earlier versions of Excel

NUMBERVALUE() is a new function added in Excel 2013. So if you are using an earlier version of Excel, then you need to come up with an alternative function. Here is one that works:

=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1, "." , "" ), "," , ".")+0

How does this work?

We first substitute all .s with nothing – Inner SUBSTITUTE
Then we substitute , with . – Outer SUBSTITUE
Then we add 0 to convert text to number

Convert regular numbers to European format

Let’s say for some reason you need convert numbers to European format. Here is one formula you can use:

=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(FIXED(A1,2,FALSE),".","$"),",","."),"$",",")

How it works?

FIXED(A1,2,FALSE) converts the number in A1 to a comma formatted number with 2 decimal points
SUBSTITUTE(FIXED(...), ".", "$") replaces the decimal point with $ symbol (you can replace it with any symbol)
SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(FIXED(...),...), "," ,".") replaces all the commas with .s
SUBSTITUTE(...., "$", ",") replaces the $ with comma