What does the CONCATENATE function do?
The function performs the concatenation operation.
Concatenation is combining several text values into one, in other words, joining text fragments. Hence the name of the function - CONCATENATE.
CONCATENATE function syntax
=CONCATENATE(text1, text2, text3...)| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | First name | Last name | Method | Result |
| 2 | John | Smith | CONCATENATE | John Smith=CONCATENATE(A2," ",B2) |
| 3 | Anna | Brown | & | Anna Brown=A3&" "&B3 |
| 4 | Max | no space | MaxLee=CONCATENATE(A4,"Lee") | |
| 5 | CONCAT of a range | JohnSmithAnnaBrown=CONCAT(A2:B3) | ||
| 6 | TEXTJOIN | John, Smith, Anna, Brown, Max=TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,A2:B4) |
Spaces and punctuation between values must be added as separate arguments in quotes. CONCATENATE doesn’t accept ranges; for ranges use CONCAT, and for a separator with empty cells skipped (TRUE) — TEXTJOIN (Excel 2019+).
The function arguments can be either cell references or manually entered values.
Concatenate dates in Excel
Many know that dates, when processed by text functions, are converted to whole numbers, which interferes with their insertion into text.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Date | Method | Result |
| 2 | 10/22/2026 | plain concatenation | Date: 46317="Date: "&A2 |
| 3 | 10/22/2026 | TEXT, short | Date: 10/22/26="Date: "&TEXT(A3,"mm/dd/yy") |
| 4 | 10/22/2026 | TEXT, full | Signed on October 22, 2026="Signed on "&TEXT(A4,"mmmm d, yyyy") |
| 5 | 10/22/2026 | weekday | Thursday, 10/22/2026=TEXT(A5,"dddd, mm/dd/yyyy") |
Excel stores a date as a day number since 1900: 10/22/2026 is 46317. Concatenation drops the cell format, so only the number is left. TEXT gives the date back its look.
The issue is that there are no separate formats for dates in Excel, and they are indeed numbers. Moreover, they can be written in dozens of ways.
To convert a date to text and get the desired formatting, the TEXT function will help. It converts numeric values into various representations in text format - percentages, dates, date-time, or time.
A short date in the mm/dd/yy format looks like this:
="Date: "&TEXT(M4,"mm/dd/yy")
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Date | Result |
| 2 | 03/01/2026 | Date: 03/01/26="Date: "&TEXT(A2,"mm/dd/yy") |
mm and dd are the month and day with a leading zero, yy is a two-digit year. The text was rewritten from the Russian date format.
For a full date with the month name, as in a letter or a contract, use the "mmmm d, yyyy" format.
The formula looks like this:
="Signed on "&TEXT(M4,"mmmm d, yyyy")
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Date | Result |
| 2 | 03/01/2026 | Signed on March 1, 2026="Signed on "&TEXT(A2,"mmmm d, yyyy") |
mmmm is the full month name, d is the day without a leading zero. The previous formula used a Russian locale code [$-FC19] for genitive month names, which makes no sense in English — replaced.
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