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Is there a limit? I couldn't find one posted.

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    Hmmmm.....doesn't this depend on whether 32-bit or 64-bit version is being used?
    – mdpc
    Dec 20, 2016 at 23:18

3 Answers 3

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Have a look at this link** and this one (and this for 2013). A quick summary:

+-----------------+-----------+--------------+---------------------+
|                 | Max. Rows | Max. Columns | Max. Cols by letter |
+-----------------+-----------+--------------+---------------------+
| Excel 365*      | 1,048,576 | 16,384       | XFD                 |
| Excel 2013      | 1,048,576 | 16,384       | XFD                 |
| Excel 2010      | 1,048,576 | 16,384       | XFD                 |
| Excel 2007      | 1,048,576 | 16,384       | XFD                 |
| Excel 2003      | 65,536    | 256          | IV                  |
| Excel 2002 (XP) | 65,536    | 256          | IV                  |
| Excel 2000      | 65,536    | 256          | IV                  |
| Excel 97        | 65,536    | 256          | IV                  |
| Excel 95        | 16,384    | 256          | IV                  |
| Excel 5         | 16,384    | 256          | IV                  |
+-----------------+-----------+--------------+---------------------+

*Excel 365 unverified.

**This (web archive) link probably will not work with your browser, but the information is in the page source.

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    Links are apparently dead. This answer, though it does in fact provide most of the information, indicates the limitations of Excel, and not of the supported file formats xls or xlsx. The limitations of xls is still 256 columns and 65536 rows, if you use that file format in a newer Excel version.
    – Lasse V. Karlsen
    May 29, 2015 at 9:11
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    @LasseV.Karlsen: Thanks for the update. It looks like the second link is still alive, but I have noted that the first link is dead.
    – Jason Down
    May 29, 2015 at 17:19
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    MS doesn't seem to have the 2003 and before specs anymore, but on Wayback you can sort of get to them... web.archive.org/web/20080313035725/http://office.microsoft.com/… for example (I edited that in).
    – Joe
    Jun 3, 2015 at 22:11
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You can find out how many rows your version of Excel supports by opening a new file in Excel then pressing CTRL + Down Arrow in an empty worksheet.

This number of rows can be saved in the default format that version of Excel supports (e.g. XLSX).

However, you will not necessarily be able to save in the older XLS format, which is still limited to 65,536 rows. Typing in a cell in row number 1048576 (e.g. A1048576) then saving to XLS format will cause a warning. If you close and re-open this file, you will then find this cell empty.

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Doing a web search for "maximum number of rows in Excel" gives a link (several, actually) with

Starting in Excel 2007, the "Big Grid" increases the maximum number of rows per worksheet from 65,536 to over 1 million, and the number of columns from 256 (IV) to 16,384 (XFD).

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