Microsoft 365

SupportOffice All Microsoft

Windows
Office support Surface
Xbox Search 
Products  Devices 
Deals
Buy Microsoft
Excel / Formulas and functions 365 / VLOOKUP function
/ Reference
What's new

Install Office

VLOOKUP function
Account & billing

Templates

Excel for Microsoft

More support 
365, Excel for Microsoft 365 for Mac, Excel for the web,

Tip: Try using the new XLOOKUP function, an improved version of VLOOKUP that
works in any direction and returns exact matches by default, making it easier and more
convenient to use than its predecessor.

Use VLOOKUP when you need to find things in a table or a range by row. For
example, look up a price of an automotive part by the part number, or find an
employee name based on their employee ID.

Tip: Check out these YouTube videos from Microsoft Creators for more help with
VLOOKUP!

In its simplest form, the VLOOKUP function says:

=VLOOKUP(What you want to look up, where you want to look for it, the column
number in the range containing the value to return, return an Approximate or Exact
match – indicated as 1/TRUE, or 0/FALSE).

Was this information helpful? Yes No

×
 

Tip: The secret to VLOOKUP is to organize your data so that the value you look up
(Fruit) is to the left of the return value (Amount) you want to find.

Technical details 

How to get started

There are four pieces of information that you will need in order to build the
VLOOKUP syntax:

1. The value you want to look up, also called the lookup value.

2. The range where the lookup value is located. Remember that the lookup value
should always be in the first column in the range for VLOOKUP to work correctly.
For example, if your lookup value is in cell C2 then your range should start with C.

3. The column number in the range that contains the return value. For example, if
you specify B2:D11 as information
Was this the range, you should count
helpful? B as the No
Yes first column, C as the ×
second, and so on.
4. Optionally, you can specify TRUE if you want an approximate match or FALSE if
you want an exact match of the return value. If you don't specify anything, the
default value will always be TRUE or approximate match.

Now put all of the above together as follows:

=VLOOKUP(lookup value, range containing the lookup value, the column number in
the range containing the return value, Approximate match (TRUE) or Exact match
(FALSE)).

Examples
Here are a few examples of VLOOKUP:

Example 1

Was this information helpful? Yes No

×
Example 2

Example 3

Was this information helpful? Yes No

×
Example 4

Was this information helpful? Yes No

×
Example 5

Combine data from several tables onto one worksheet by using VLOOKUP 

Common Problems 

Best practices 

Need more help?

You can always ask an expert in the Excel Tech Community, get support in the
Answers community, or suggest a new feature or improvement on Excel User Voice.

Was this information helpful? Yes No

×
See Also
Quick Reference Card: VLOOKUP refresher
Quick Reference Card: VLOOKUP troubleshooting tips
YouTube: VLOOKUP videos from Microsoft Creators
How to correct a #VALUE! error in the VLOOKUP function
How to correct a #N/A error in the VLOOKUP function
Overview of formulas in Excel
How to avoid broken formulas
Detect errors in formulas
Excel functions (alphabetical)
Excel functions (by category)
VLOOKUP (free preview)

Need more help?

How can we help you? 

Expand your Office skills

EXPLORE TRAINING  Get instant Excel help
CONNECT TO AN EXPERT NOW 

Subject to Got It terms and conditions

Was this information helpful? Yes No

×
What's new Microsoft Education Enterprise Developer Company
Store
Surface Laptop 4 Microsoft in Azure Microsoft Careers
Account profile education Visual Studio
Surface Laptop AppSource About
Go Download Office for Windows Dev Microsoft
Center students Automotive Center
Surface Go 2 Company news
Microsoft Store Office 365 for Government Developer
Surface Pro X support schools Center Privacy at
Healthcare Microsoft
Surface Duo Returns Deals for Microsoft
students & Manufacturing developer Investors
Microsoft 365 Order tracking parents program
Financial services Diversity and
Windows 10 apps Virtual Microsoft Channel 9 inclusion
workshops and Azure in Retail
HoloLens 2 training education Office Dev Accessibility
Center
Microsoft Store Security
Promise Microsoft
Garage
Financing

 English (United States)

Sitemap Contact Microsoft Privacy & cookies Terms of use Trademarks Safety & eco
About our ads © Microsoft 2021

Was this information helpful? Yes No

×