How to Perform a Reverse VLOOKUP in Google Sheets

This tutorial explains how to perform a reverse VLOOKUP in Google Sheets.

Suppose we have the following dataset that shows the number of points scored by various basketball teams:

We can use the following VLOOKUP formula to find the number of points associated with the “Knicks” team:

=VLOOKUP("Knicks", A1:B9, 2)

Here’s what this formula does:

It identifies Knicks as the value to find.
It specifies A1:B9 as the range to analyze.
It specifies that we’d like to return the value in the 2nd column from the left.

Here’s how to use this formula in practice:

This formula correctly returns the value of 99.

However, suppose we instead want to know which team is associated with a points value of 99.

We can use the following reverse VLOOKUP formula:

=VLOOKUP(99, {B2:B9, A2:A9}, 2)

Here’s what this formula does:

It identifies 99 as the value to find.
It specifies B2:B9 and A2:A9 as the ranges to analyze.
It specifies that we’d like to return the value in the 2nd column from the right.

Here’s how to use this formula in practice:

The formula correctly identifies the Knicks as the team with a points value of 99.

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