How many Rows and Columns in Excel? All Answers Here

The number of rows and columns in Excel will have you jaw-dropped 😵

How many of them does Excel have? Let’s walk through the guide below to learn that.

Download our free sample workbook for this guide here and jump right in.

Excel row limit

Excel has a whopping 1,048,576 rows!

Until and unless you are processing some really, really huge datasets, you are never going to touch that limit.

Try scrolling down to the bottom of your sheet and it’d take you hours to be there ⌛

But wait! How do I know that? You can double-check that number by scrolling to the end of your sheet.

1. Launch a new Excel book.
2. Press down the Control key together with the down arrow.

Excel will navigate you to the last row 🚀

See that serial number on the last row header? 1,048,576th row comes last.

Excel column limit

Just like the row limit, Excel’s column limit will also amaze you. So how many columns does Excel has?

Excel columns extend up to Column XFD – that makes 16,384 columns. A big number 😲

Columns in Excel are labeled with alphabets. After the normal alphabetic series A-Z ends, letters are paired alphabetically. Like after Z, the next column header is AA, AB up to AZ. Then starts BA, BB up to BZ, and so on 🔠

To check the last column header:

1. Launch a new Excel workbook.
2. Press down the Control key together with the right arrow (or the End button).

Excel will navigate you to the last column.

The last column of an Excel sheet is titled XFD. That’s alright, but how do I know these make 16,384 columns?

Here are two ways how you can check that:

1. Navigate to the last column using the Control key + the right arrow key 🏹
2. In the last column of Excel, type the following formula:

= COLUMN ()

The COLUMN function returns the column number of the column where it is written. This tells that Column XFD is the 16,384th column of Excel.

Another way to check that is to change the reference style of columns from alphabets to numbers. To do that:

3. Go to the File tab > Excel options.
4. Select Formulas from the pane on the left.

5. Under the Heading Working with Formulas, check the R1C1 reference style.

The alphabetic column headers will now be replaced with numeric headers. Both the column and row headers now show numbers.

So you see the number on the last column header.

Excel offers a fine number of rows and columns in an Excel sheet so you can go spreadsheeting endlessly 🪁

Great, isn’t it?

Find the last row with the data

If you don’t go very heavy on data, you’ll barely ever touch the row or column limit in Excel.

The good news: when you save a worksheet, Excel only saves that part of the sheet that contains any data or formatting. This prevents the Excel file from growing very large.

So, how do you scroll to the last row of your Excel worksheet that has data 🤔

The image above has dense rows of data. How do we check which is the last row of data?

Simple. Press down the Control key together with the down arrow.

Excel will navigate you to the last row containing data. And that’s Row 20. 💪

In Row 20 (the last row with data), if you again press down the control key with the down arrow, you’d be navigated to the last row of the sheet.

Find the last column with the data

Navigating to the last column of data in Excel is just the same as going to the last row of data.

For example, the image below has multiple columns of data.

To find the last column that has data:

Press down the Control key together with the right arrow button.

Excel will navigate you to the last column containing data. And that’s Column M 👉

Stick to Column M and press the Control Key + the right arrow key again to reach the last column of Excel.

That’s it – Now what?/

If you hadn’t known the row and column limits of Excel, you’d still be awe-struck by now. And that’s justified.

Excel is one of the most gigantic spreadsheet software out there. It offers a huge data storage capacity with a handsome row and column limit 🎯

Want to explore more from Excel more? There are so many more tools, features, and functions for you to master.

Like the SUMIF, IF, and VLOOKUP functions of Excel. My 30-minute free email course will take you these (and much more) from Excel in no time. Click here to register now.

Other resources

There’s so much more about Excel rows and columns that’ll inspire you.

Read more about inserting multiple rows and columns in Excel and scrolling through them. Rows and columns locked and won’t move when you scroll? Fix it here.