Sass calculate percent minus px

Sass cannot perform arithmetic on values that cannot be converted from one unit to the next. Sass has no way of knowing exactly how wide "100%" is in terms of pixels or any other unit. That's something only the browser knows.

You need to use calc() instead. Check browser compatibility on Can I use...

.foo {
    height: calc(25% - 5px);
}

If your values are in variables, you may need to use interpolation turn them into strings (otherwise Sass just tries to perform arithmetic):

$a: 25%;
$b: 5px;

.foo {
  width: calc(#{$a} - #{$b});
}

There is a calc function in both SCSS [compile-time] and CSS [run-time]. You're likely invoking the former instead of the latter.

For obvious reasons mixing units won't work compile-time, but will at run-time.

You can force the latter by using unquote, a SCSS function.

.selector { height: unquote("-webkit-calc(100% - 40px)"); }

IF you know the width of the container, you could do like this:

#container
  width: #{200}px
  #element
    width: #{(0.25 * 200) - 5}px

I'm aware that in many cases #container could have a relative width. Then this wouldn't work.

$var:25%;
$foo:5px;
.selector {
    height:unquote("calc( #{$var} - #{$foo} )");
}