There are two valid ways to use a VLOOKUP by date in Excel:
Method 1: Use VLOOKUP with Cell Reference
=VLOOKUP(D2, A2:B9, 2, FALSE)
This formula looks up the date in cell D2 in the range A2:B9 and returns the corresponding value in column 2 of the range.
Method 2: Use VLOOKUP with DATEVALUE
=VLOOKUP(DATEVALUE("1/14/2023"), A2:B9, 2, FALSE)
This formula looks up the date 1/14/2023 in the range A2:B9 and returns the corresponding value in column 2 of the range.
Note: The FALSE argument tells Excel to look for exact matches instead of approximate matches.
The following examples show how to use each method in practice with the following dataset in Excel:
Example 1: Use VLOOKUP by Date with Cell Reference
Suppose we would like to look up the date 1/14/2023 and return the corresponding value in the sales column.
We can type the following formula into cell E2 to do so:
=VLOOKUP(D2, A2:B9, 2, FALSE)
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
The VLOOKUP formula correctly returns a sales value of 15.
Example 2: Use VLOOKUP by Date with DATEVALUE
Once again suppose we would like to look up the date 1/14/2023 and return the corresponding value in the sales column.
We can type the following formula into cell E2 to do so:
=VLOOKUP(DATEVALUE("1/14/2023"), A2:B9, 2, FALSE)
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
The VLOOKUP formula correctly returns a sales value of 15.
Note that if we attempted to use the quoted date without the DATEVALUE function, we would receive #N/A as a result instead:
The DATEVALUE function is needed to convert a text date into a serial date number that is recognizable by Excel.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Excel:
Excel: How to Use VLOOKUP to Return All Matches
Excel: Use VLOOKUP to Return Blank Instead of Zero
Excel: How to Use TRUE or FALSE in VLOOKUP
