How do I remove the first 2 digits from a cell in Google Sheets?

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To remove the first 2 digits from a cell in Google Sheets, you can use the LEFT function to extract a portion of the cell’s contents. The syntax for this function is =LEFT(text, [num_chars]), where “text” is the cell you want to extract from and “num_chars” is the number of characters you want to remove. For example, if the cell A1 contains the value “123456”, using the formula =LEFT(A1,4) will return “3456” as the result. This allows you to remove the first two digits, or any number of digits, from a cell in Google Sheets.

Often you may want to remove the first 2 digits from a cell in Google Sheets.

You can use the RIGHT function combined with the LEN function to do so:

=RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-2)

This particular formula removes the first 2 digits from cell A2.

For example, if cell A2 contains AA2806 then this formula would return just 2806.

The following example shows how to use this formula in practice.

Example: Remove First 2 Digits from Cell in Google Sheets

Suppose we have the following list of employee ID’s in Google Sheets:

Suppose we would like to remove the first two digits from each employee ID.

We can type the following formula into cell B2 to do so:

=RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-2)

We can then click and drag this formula down to each remaining cell in column B:

Google Sheets remove first 2 digits

Column B now displays the employee ID’s in column A with the first two digits removed from each employee ID.

How This Formula Works

The RIGHT() function in Google Sheets extracts a specific number of characters from the right side of a string.

Thus, our formula extracts the amount of characters equal to the length of the string minus two characters.

Thus, our formula displays the entire string with the first two digits removed.

Note that blank spaces at the start of a string count as characters.

You may need to first remove blank spaces to get your desired result.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Google Sheets:

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