DEVSQ Function in Excel: Sum of Squared Deviations

⏱ 1 min readUpdated 28 September 2026

StatisticsLevel: ExpertAvailable in: Excel 2007+

In this article
  1. Syntax
  2. Examples
  3. Example 1
  4. Related functions

DEVSQ adds up how far each value is from the mean, squared. It is the raw ingredient of variance and of ANOVA tables.

Syntax

=DEVSQ(number1, [number2], ...)
Argument What it means
number1… Values.

Examples

Example 1

=DEVSQ(B2:B13)/(COUNT(B2:B13)-1)

Same result as VAR.S — handy for showing where variance comes from.

VAR.S · SUMSQ

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