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INDEX + MATCH

Lookups & references

The classic two-step lookup — works left or right and across two dimensions.

Difficulty

Good
Excel file

1What is it?

MATCH finds the position of a value in a row or column; INDEX returns the cell at a given position. Together they do everything VLOOKUP does and more — look up leftward, or cross a row header and a column header for a two-way lookup — and they work in every version of Excel.

2What it looks like

INDEX(return_range, MATCH(lookup, lookup_range, 0))
return_range
The range to pull the answer from.
lookup
The value to find.
lookup_range
The range to search.
0
Match type — 0 means exact match (almost always what you want).

3When you use it

  • Look up a value to the left of the key (where VLOOKUP can't reach).
  • Two-way lookup: INDEX(grid, MATCH(row), MATCH(col)).
  • Stable lookups that don't break when columns are inserted.

4See it in action

Change the inputs — the formula and result update live. Prefer the real thing? Download the Excel file and open it in Excel.

Start simple · 1 of 2

Find a month's revenue by matching the month name.

C2
fx
=INDEX(B2:B4, MATCH("Feb", A2:A4, 0))$88,000
ABC
1MonthRevenueResult
2Jan$80,000$88,000
3Feb$88,000
4Mar$96,000

The lime cell holds the formula — click it (or any cell) to see its contents in the bar above, just like Excel. Edit the blue cells to watch it recompute.

5Common errors

#N/AMATCH found nothing.

Fix: Use 0 for exact match and confirm the value really exists (watch text-vs-number).

#REF!MATCH's position is outside return_range.

Fix: Make return_range and lookup_range the same length.

6Better functions & alternatives

  • XLOOKUP — Simpler one-function syntax in Microsoft 365 / 2021.
  • INDEX + MATCH + MATCH — Add a second MATCH to look up a row and a column at once.
  • VLOOKUP — Shorter for simple left-to-right lookups, but more fragile.

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