The easiest way to take the average of a filtered range in Excel is to use the following syntax:
SUBTOTAL(101, A1:A10)
Note that the value 101 is a shortcut for taking the average of a filtered range of rows.
The following example shows how to use this function in practice.
Example: Sum Filtered Rows in Excel
Suppose we have the following dataset that shows the number of sales made during various days by a company:
Next, let’s filter the data to only show the dates that are in January or April.
To do so, highlight the cell range A1:B13. Then click the Data tab along the top ribbon and click the Filter button.
Then click the dropdown arrow next to Date and make sure that only the boxes next to January and April are checked, then click OK:
The data will automatically be filtered to only show the rows where the dates are in January or April:
If we attempt to use the AVERAGE() function to find the average value in the Sales column, it will actually return the average of all of the original values:
Instead, we can use the SUBTOTAL() function:
This function takes the average of only the visible rows.
We can manually verify this by taking the average of the visible rows:
Average of Sales in visible rows: (9+13+14+14+19) / 5 = 13.8.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Excel:
How to Delete Filtered Rows in Excel
How to Count Filtered Rows in Excel
How to Sum Filtered Rows in Excel