How can I use VLOOKUP to search for values within a specified date range in Excel?

By /

VLOOKUP is a useful function in Excel that allows you to search for a specific value within a table or range of data. It can also be used to search for values within a specified date range. This is particularly helpful when working with large amounts of data that have dates associated with them. By using VLOOKUP, you can easily locate and retrieve data that falls within a certain date range, saving time and effort in manually searching through the data. To use VLOOKUP for this purpose, you will need to first create a lookup table with the date range and associated values, and then use the VLOOKUP function to search for the desired value within that range. This feature is especially useful for financial and project management tasks, where you may need to retrieve data from a specific time period. With VLOOKUP, you can efficiently and accurately search for values within a specified date range in Excel.

Excel: Use VLOOKUP With Date Range

You can use the following formula with the VLOOKUP function in Excel to look up a value that falls in a date range and return the corresponding value in another range:

=VLOOKUP(E2,$A$2:$C$7,3,TRUE)

This particular formula looks up the date in cell E2 within the range A2:C7 and returns the corresponding value from the third column in the range.

Note that this formula assumes column A contains a list of start dates, column B contains a list of end dates, and column C contains some value you’d like to return.

The following example shows how to use this formula in practice.

Example: How to Use VLOOKUP with Date Range in Excel

Suppose we have the following dataset in Excel that shows the start and end dates for when various people were CEO of a particular company:

Suppose we want to know who the CEO was on 4/9/2007.

We can type this date into cell E2 and then type the following formula into cell F2:

=VLOOKUP(E2,$A$2:$C$7,3,TRUE)

The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:

Excel VLOOKUP with date range

The formula correctly returns Bob, which is the person who was the CEO on 4/9/2007.

If we change the date in cell E2 to 12/15/2020, then the formula will automatically update to return the name of the person who was CEO on this date:

The formula correctly returns Eric, which is the person who was the CEO on 12/15/2020.

If the first column in your lookup range is not sorted, the VLOOKUP function could return unexpected results.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Excel:

x

Related terms:

  1. How can I use VLOOKUP in Google Sheets to find a value that falls within a specified range?
  2. How Can I Use VLOOKUP in Google Sheets to Find a Value That Falls Within a Range?
  3. How can I use Google Sheets to count the number of “Yes” and “No” values in a specified range?
  4. Excel: Use VLOOKUP With Date Range
  5. How can I search for a string within a MongoDB collection?
  6. How can I use the VLOOKUP function in Google Sheets with CONCATENATE to search for data from multiple columns?
  7. How can I check if a given date falls between two specified dates in R?
  8. What are the steps to return all rows greater than a specified date in MySQL?
  9. How can I select rows from MySQL where the date falls within the last 30 days?
  10. How can I use VLOOKUP to return multiple values in one cell in Excel?