Convert text to year in Excel

The easiest way to convert text to a year in Excel is with the TEXT function. It takes value as the first argument and formatting as the second.

TEXT(value, format_text)

You can use the following formula to convert the date in Cell A2 and display it as a year only.

=TEXT(A2,"yyyy")

You can also display the last two digits of the year by using this formula.

=TEXT(A2,"yyyy")

You can also use the text formula to display months, days, hours, minutes and seconds, and separate them with a dash, slash, or any other separator.

You can combine this date with text to make it more readable.

="The year is "&B2&"."

And with the CONCAT function.

=CONCAT("The year is ",B2,".")

Here’s a table with different formats.

Format	Definition
yyyy / yyy	A year with four digits (1998, 2019, etc.)
yy / y	A year with two digits (98, 19, etc.)
mm	A month with leading zero (05, 12, etc.)
m	A month without leading zero (5, 12, etc.)
dd	A day with leading zero (05, 12, 30, etc.)
d	A day without leading zero (5, 12, 30, etc.)