What Is the Difference Between a Statement and an Expression in Rust?

Core

2026-04-17T12:05:42+00:00

Expressions in Rust return values and can be used anywhere, whereas statements perform actions and do not return values.

In Rust, an expression evaluates to a value, while a statement performs an action and returns no value. You can use expressions anywhere a value is expected, but statements are limited to specific contexts like the body of a function.

fn main() {
    // Expression: evaluates to 5, assigned to x
    let x = 5;

    // Statement: performs assignment, returns ()
    let y = 10;

    // Expression: evaluates to 15, assigned to z
    let z = x + y;

    // Statement: prints value, returns ()
    println!("z is {z}");
}