How to Stop Excel from Automatically Formatting Negative Numbers in Red

In the world of finance and accounting, it is a common convention to display negative numbers in red text, often enclosed in parentheses, to make losses or deficits immediately obvious at a glance. Because of this, if you apply the “Accounting” or “Currency” number format to a cell in Microsoft Excel, the software will automatically change the font color of any negative number to red.

While this is standard practice for accountants, it can be highly annoying if you are building a custom dashboard or a color-coded chart where the color red means something else (such as a specific category or a failing grade), and you want negative numbers to remain in the default black text.

Fortunately, you can override this automatic behavior by adjusting the cell’s custom number formatting code.

How to Stop Negative Numbers from Turning Red

You can remove the color formatting constraint by modifying the rules governing the specific cells.

1. Highlight the cell or range of cells containing your negative numbers.
2. Right-click the highlighted area and select Format Cells from the context menu (or press Ctrl + 1 on your keyboard).
3. In the Format Cells window, ensure you are on the Number tab.
4. In the “Category” list on the left, select Number or Currency.
5. Look at the “Negative numbers” box on the right. You will likely see options showing the number in red (e.g., -1,234.10 in red or (1,234.10) in red).
6. Select one of the black options instead (e.g., -1,234.10 in black).
7. Click OK.

How to Create a Custom Format (Advanced)

If you want ultimate control over how numbers are displayed, you can edit the underlying format code.

1. Select the cells, press Ctrl + 1, and choose Custom from the Category list.
2. Look at the “Type” box. Excel formatting code is divided into four sections separated by semicolons: [Positive];[Negative];[Zero];[Text]
3. If you see the word [Red] in the second section (the negative section), simply delete the word [Red] from the code. For example, change:

$#,##0.00;[Red]$#,##0.00
to
$#,##0.00;$#,##0.00

4. Click OK. Your negative numbers will now perfectly match the font color of the rest of your spreadsheet.