Adding a Plus Sign to Phone Numbers in Excel for Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM - Importing Data - Why Won't Excel Let Me Put a "+" in Front of a Phone Number?

If you've typed a phone number into Excel with a leading plus sign, such as +447700900000, and watched Excel either strip the plus off completely or throw up a "found an error in your formula" pop-up, this is expected behaviour rather than a fault. It happens because Excel treats anything starting with a digit, or a plus followed by digits, as a number or a formula, not as text.

Why this happens

By default, every cell in Excel uses General number formatting. When you type a plus sign followed by numbers, Excel interprets this as the start of a calculation rather than as international dialling code notation, so one of two things happens: it silently drops the plus and keeps only the digits, or it shows a formula error because what follows the plus doesn't resolve into a valid calculation.

How to fix it

  1. Select the column. Click the column header to select every cell in that column.
  2. Open Format Cells. Right-click the selected column and choose Format Cells.
  3. Set the format to Text. Under Category, select Text, then click OK.
  4. Enter or paste your numbers. With the column formatted as Text, Excel will keep the plus sign and treat the whole entry as a text string rather than a number.
Important: This only works for data entered after the format change. If you've already typed numbers into the column and Excel has already stripped the plus sign or thrown an error, changing the format afterwards will not restore what was lost. You'll need to re-enter or re-paste that data once the column is set to Text.

Fixing just a few cells

If you only need to fix a handful of individual cells rather than a whole column, you can type an apostrophe directly before the plus sign, for example '+447700900000. The apostrophe tells Excel to treat everything that follows as literal text, and it won't be displayed in the cell itself.

Why this matters for a Zoho CRM import

Phone fields are commonly imported with a leading plus sign so the number is stored in full international format, which matters if you're using calling, SMS, or other integrations that expect that format. If your source file loses the plus sign in Excel before you even get to Zoho CRM, no amount of field mapping during the import itself can bring it back, since Zoho CRM only imports the value that's actually in the file. Fixing the column format in Excel first, before you import, is the only reliable way to keep the plus sign intact.

For the full picture on preparing a file for import, see our Import Checklist and Limits for Zoho CRM and How to Import Data to a Module in Zoho CRM.
Need help? 1 Cloud Consultants can help you prepare a clean import file for Zoho CRM, including keeping international phone number formats intact. Book a discovery call with 1 Cloud Consultants.