Percentage Change vs Percentage Points

A practical explanation of two terms that are often mixed up.

Percentage change and percentage points describe different things. Understanding the distinction avoids common mistakes in finance, statistics and everyday calculations.

Percentage points

Moving from 10% to 15% is an increase of 5 percentage points.

Percentage change

The relative increase from 10% to 15% is (15 − 10) ÷ 10 × 100 = 50%.

Which one should you use?

Use percentage points when comparing two percentages directly. Use percentage change when measuring how much the underlying value changed relative to its starting value.