You can use the following formula to return the row number of a matching cell in Excel:
=MATCH(F1, A1:A11, 0)
This particular formula will return the row number in the range A1:A11 for the cell whose value matches the value in cell F1.
Note: The last argument of 0 tells Excel to look for an exact match of the lookup value.
The following example shows how to use this formula in practice.
Example: Return Row Number of Matching Cell in Excel
Suppose we have the following dataset in Excel that contains information about various basketball players:
Suppose we would like to return the row number of the cell that is equal to “Mavs” in the team column.
We can type the following formula into cell F2 to do so:
=MATCH(F1, A1:A11, 0)
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
The formula returns a value of 2, which tells us that the second row in the range A1:A11 contains “Mavs” as the team name.
If we change the team name in cell F1 to a different name, the MATCH function will update to return the new row number.
For example, suppose we change the lookup team name to Lakers:
The formula returns a value of 8, which tells us that the eighth row in the range A1:A11 contains “Mavs” as the team name.
Note: You can find the complete documentation for the MATCH function in Excel here.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Excel:
Excel: Count Number of Matches Between Two Columns
Excel: How to Find All Values that Match Criteria
Excel: How to Find Matching Values in Two Worksheets
