Excel CONCATENATE Function: Join Text, Names and Dates

The Excel CONCATENATE function joins two or more pieces of text into one, such as a first and last name. In newer Excel it has been replaced by CONCAT and TEXTJOIN, but it still works everywhere.

fx=CONCATENATE(text1, [text2], ...)

PurposeJoin text

ReturnsText

Available inAll Excel versions, Excel for the web, Google Sheets

`text1`	The first text, number or cell to join.
`text2, ...` optional	More items to join, up to 255.

Table of Contents

Basic example

To join a first and last name, add a space in quotes between them:

=CONCATENATE(B3," ",C3)

Excel CONCATENATE joining first and last names with a space

Anu and Thomas become Anu Thomas. Without the " ", you’d get AnuThomas.

Join text with a formatted date

Dates are numbers, so joining one directly shows a serial number like 46296. Format it with TEXT first:

=CONCATENATE(B3," dated ",TEXT(C3,"dd-mmm-yyyy"))

Excel CONCATENATE joining an invoice number with a formatted date

The result reads INV-101 dated 01-Oct-2026.

Build email addresses

Join the names with a dot and the domain, then wrap in LOWER:

=LOWER(CONCATENATE(B3,".",C3,"@xlncad.com"))

Excel CONCATENATE and LOWER building email addresses from names

The result is anu.thomas@xlncad.com.

CONCATENATE vs & vs CONCAT vs TEXTJOIN

Method	Example	Ranges?	Separator?
CONCATENATE	`=CONCATENATE(B3," ",C3)`	No	Typed each time
& operator	`=B3&" "&C3`	No	Typed each time
CONCAT	`=CONCAT(B3:D3)`	Yes	No
TEXTJOIN	`=TEXTJOIN(" ",TRUE,B3:D3)`	Yes	Yes, once

For a few cells, & is shortest. For a range or a list with separators, use TEXTJOIN.

Notes

CONCATENATE can’t join a whole range such as B3:D3 in one argument. List each cell, or use CONCAT or TEXTJOIN.
Spaces and punctuation must be added as text in quotes.
The result is always text, even when you join numbers.
CONCATENATE is kept for compatibility. In Excel 2019 and later, CONCAT does the same and accepts ranges.

Common errors

Problem	Cause	Fix
Words run together	No space between items	Add `" "` between them
Date shows as a number	Dates are stored as numbers	Wrap the date in TEXT
`#VALUE!`	More than 255 items	Use TEXTJOIN with a range

Practice file

All three examples plus the comparison in a cheat sheet.

Download .xlsx