How to Create a Bar Chart in Power BI (Types, Formatting and Conditional Colors)

When a sales director asks “which products sell the most?”, I answer with a bar chart. Long product names fit on the axis, the ranking is obvious at a glance, and it’s the chart people read correctly without any explanation.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a bar chart in Power BI, choose between stacked, clustered and 100% stacked bars, show data labels, make the bars thicker and color them by value with conditional formatting. Every step uses a real sales report in Power BI Desktop.

Quick answer: Select the Clustered bar chart icon in the Visualizations pane, add a category (such as Product) to the Y-axis and a number (such as Revenue) to the X-axis. Turn on Format visual > Data labels to show values, change bar thickness with Bars > Layout > Space between categories, and color bars by value with the fx button under Bars > Color.

Bar chart types in Power BI

Power BI has three horizontal bar charts. Bar charts are the horizontal version of column charts, which makes them better for long category names and for rankings.

Type	What it shows	Use it for
Clustered bar chart	One bar per category; with a Legend, bars sit side by side	Ranking products, comparing a few series
Stacked bar chart	One bar per category, split into segments by Legend	Totals plus their make-up, such as revenue by product and region
100% stacked bar chart	Every bar is 100%, split into shares	Comparing the mix, such as the share of each region per product

For the side-by-side version in more depth, see how to create a clustered bar chart in Power BI. Vertical bars are covered in column charts in Power BI.

How to create a bar chart in Power BI

I’m using a sales table with 600 orders from 2025 and 2026, with Product and Revenue columns.

1. Click an empty spot on the report canvas so no visual is selected.
2. In the Visualizations pane, select Clustered bar chart.
3. In the Data pane, select Product. It goes to the Y-axis (the categories).
4. Select Revenue. It goes to the X-axis as Sum of Revenue (the bar length).
5. Optional: add a field to Legend to split or stack the bars, or to Small multiples to repeat the chart per category.

Power BI sorts the bars by value, largest at the top, which is usually what you want for a ranking.

If you already have a pie or column chart with the right fields, select it and click the bar chart icon to convert it. For when to choose bars over a pie, see how to create a pie chart in Power BI.

Create a stacked or 100% stacked bar chart

To see how each bar breaks down, add a second category to Legend. With Product on the Y-axis, Revenue on the X-axis and Region in Legend:

• A stacked bar chart shows each product’s total revenue, split into colored region segments.
• A 100% stacked bar chart makes every bar the same length and shows each region’s share of that product.
• A clustered bar chart puts one bar per region side by side within each product.

Switch between them by selecting the chart and clicking the other icon; the fields stay. On a 100% stacked bar, check what the data labels show before you publish; if you want each segment’s share as a percentage, use a percent-of-total measure as the label. Keep the Legend to five or six values, or the segments become too thin to read.

Show data labels on the bars

Select the chart, open Format visual > Visual and turn on Data labels. A few settings make them readable:

• Value > Display units: with Auto, my smaller products showed “$0.01M”. Thousands gives $12K, which is much clearer.
• Options > Position: Outside end is easiest to read; Inside end saves space on short charts.
• Detail: adds a second value to the label, such as a percentage.

To show both the value and its share of the total on each bar, follow how to show percentage in a Power BI bar chart.

Increase the bar width

Power BI sets the bar thickness from the space between the bars. To make the bars thicker, select the chart and open Format visual > Visual > Bars > Layout, then lower Space between categories. The default is 50%; I set it to 20%:

The Format pane search box is the fastest way to find this: type “space” and only the spacing settings remain. With a Legend, you’ll also see a setting for the space between series, which controls the gap between bars in the same group.

For softer bar ends, see adding rounded corners to bar charts.

Conditional formatting: color bars by value

By default every bar has the same color. To highlight the top sellers, I colored any product with $200,000 or more in revenue orange:

1. Select the chart and open Format visual > Visual > Bars > Color.
2. Select the fx button next to the color. The Color – Categories dialog opens.
3. Set Format style to Rules.
4. Under What field should we base this on?, pick Sum of Revenue. Summarization changes to Sum.
5. In the rule, choose >= 200000 Number, and < 2000000 Number, then pick a color.
6. Select OK.

Bars that don’t match any rule keep the default color. Use New rule to add more bands, for example gray below $50,000. Watch the default value type: the first box defaults to Percent, which means a percentage of the range, not a dollar amount. Switch it to Number for fixed thresholds.

The other two format styles work the same way:

• Gradient: a color scale from the lowest to the highest value, with an optional middle color.
• Field value: takes the color from a measure that returns a hex code, which is the most flexible option.

Here’s a field value measure that gives three color bands:

Bar Color =
VAR Rev = SUM ( Sales[Revenue] )
RETURN
SWITCH (
    TRUE (),
    Rev >= 200000, "#E66C37",
    Rev >= 50000, "#118DFF",
    "#B3B3B3"
)

Choose Field value as the format style and pick this measure. The same technique works on most visuals; see the full guide to conditional formatting in Power BI.

Color bars by category

To give each product its own fixed color, open Bars, set Apply settings to > Categories to a specific product, and change its color. Repeat for each product you want to highlight. This is static, so it’s best for a short list, such as calling out one product in brand colors.

Sort a bar chart

Open More options (…) on the chart, choose Sort by and pick the field, then open More options again and choose Sort ascending or Sort descending. Sorting by the category name gives an alphabetical list. For stacked bars, see how to sort a stacked bar chart by value.

Add a target line to a bar chart

To compare bars against a goal, select the chart and open the Analytics pane (the magnifying glass icon). Add an X-axis constant line with your target value, or an average line. If you need a second measure drawn as a line, switch to a combo chart instead: how to use a Power BI combo chart.

Bar chart problems and fixes

• Bars for some categories are missing: categories with no data are hidden. Turn on Show items with no data, or see how to show zero values in a bar chart.
• Labels show $0.0M: set Data labels > Value > Display units to Thousands or None.
• The bars are too thin: lower Bars > Layout > Space between categories, or make the visual taller.
• Only the top bars are visible: the chart has more categories than fit, so it adds a scrollbar. Make it taller, filter to the Top N, or turn on the Zoom slider.
• Conditional colors don’t change: check the value type in the rule (Percent vs Number) and that the rule ranges don’t overlap.

These Power BI chart tutorials go well with bar charts:

• Power BI Line Chart
• Create Ribbon Chart in Power BI
• How to Create & Use Funnel Chart in Power BI?
• How to use Microsoft Power BI Scatter Chart

Frequently Asked Questions