How to Calculate Year-over-Year Metrics in Power BI

What is YoY Metrics?

Year-over-Year (YoY) metrics are performance indicators that compare a specific measure from one period to the same period in the previous year. They're essential for understanding long-term trends and seasonal patterns.

How YoY is calculated.

YoY = (Current Year Value – Previous Year Value)/Previous Year Value* 100

For Example: If a company earned 600000 in the current year and 500000 in the previous year, then YoY growth is 20.0% as computed below.

YoY = (600000-500000)/500000 *100 = 20.0%

Computing Year-over-Year Metrics in Power BI

In this example, I am using the sample – superstore dataset, which ranges between 2017 and 2020 to compute YoY growth between the year 2019 and 2020.

To do so, lets compute the current value in this case 2020 Sales as shown below.

(This calculation will return the sales of the year selected in your filters card, in this case Year 2020)

Next, create a new column, to be used in filtering data as well as computing the previous year’s sales using the calculation below.

Note this calculation is created by truncating the Order Date to the year.

Create another measure computing Previous Year Sales as show below.

Note the above two measures return the current and previous year sales based on the selection on the filter as shown below. Note, year 2020 is selected on the filters card.

Lastly compute percent growth using the calculation below.

Adding the above calculation to the card and formatting returns the YoY growth of Sales between the year selected on the filter and the previous year.

Note you can build nicer KPI cards to present your YoY computations, such as the one shown below.

Useful: Explore how to create KPI cards in Power BI.

Conclusion

Creating Year-over-Year (YoY) metrics in Power BI isn’t just a technical exercise - it’s a strategic move toward clearer, more contextualized decision-making. By leveraging DAX functions and combining them with intuitive visuals, you unlock the ability to track growth, spot seasonal trends, and communicate performance with precision.

Whether you're building executive dashboards, optimizing self-service analytics, or crafting tutorials for your audience, YoY metrics offer a powerful lens for comparing progress over time.

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