How to remove NA values from a vector in R

March 14, 2026 · 1 min read · Updated March 14, 2026 · beginner

r na missing-data dplyr tidyr

NA values represent missing data in R. Here’s how to remove them from vectors and data frames.

From a Vector

Use na.omit() or logical indexing:

x <- c(1, 2, NA, 4, NA, 6)
x_clean <- na.omit(x)
# [1] 1 2 4 6

Or with subsetting:

x_clean <- x[!is.na(x)]

Use na.omit() within a pipe:

library(dplyr)

x <- c(1, 2, NA, 4, NA, 6)
x_clean <- x %>% na.omit()

Remove rows with any NA:

df_clean <- na.omit(df)

Use drop_na() from tidyr:

library(dplyr)
library(tidyr)

df_clean <- df %>% drop_na()

Drop NA from specific columns only:

df_clean <- df %>% drop_na(column_name)