How to lookup or find value with max or last Date in Excel

In this article, we will learn How to look up or find value with last Date in Excel.

Lookup a value and find max or last date

The picture below shows you values in column B (B3:B9) and dates in column C (C3:C9). The formula in cell F4 lets you search for value and return the latest date in an adjacent or corresponding column for that value.

Update, 2017-08-15! Added a regular formula.

Formula in cell F4:

Array formula in F4:

Formula in cell F4 (Excel newer versions):

How to create an array formula

1. Double click cell C5
2. Copy / Paste above array formula
3. Press and hold Ctrl + Shift simultaneously
4. Press Enter
5. Release all keys

The formula changes and now begins and ends with a curly bracket, don't enter these characters yourself. They appear automatically.

Explaining array formula in cell C5

You can follow along if you select cell C5 and go to tab "Formulas" on the ribbon and then click the "Evaluate Formula" button. Click the "Evaluate" button, shown on the dialog box, to move to the next step.

Step 1 - Find values equal to lookup value

C3=A8:A14

becomes

"EE"={"AA";"CC";"EE";"BB";"EE";"VV";"EE"}

and returns

{FALSE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE}

Step 2 - Convert boolean values to corresponding dates

IF(C3=A8:A14, B8:B14)

becomes

IF({FALSE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE} ,B8:B14)

becomes

IF({FALSE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE} , {40152; 40156; 40323; 40068; 40149; 40312; 40195})

and returns

{FALSE;FALSE;40323;FALSE;40149;FALSE;40195}

Step 3 - Return the largest value

=MAX(IF(C3=A8:A14, B8:B14))

becomes

=MAX({FALSE;FALSE;40323;FALSE;40149;FALSE;40195})

and returns 40323 formatted as 2010-05-25.

Lookup a value and find max date (Pivot Table)

The formulas demonstrated in this article may be too slow or take too much memory if you work with huge amounts of data. The Pivot Table is an excellent option in such cases, it is remarkably fast even with lots of data.

How to set up Pivot Table

1. Select the cell range containing the data.

1. Go to tab "Insert" on the ribbon.

1. Click on the "Pivot Table" button.
2. A dialog box appears.
   

   I usually place the Pivot Table on a new worksheet so it doesn't hide parts of the data set while filtering etc.

1. Click the OK button.

1. Click on Values and drag to Filters field, see blue arrow above.
2. Click on Dates and drag to Values field.
3. Click on "Count of Dates".



4. Click on "Value Field Settings...".



5. Click on "Max" to select it.
6. Click on "Number Format" button.



7. Click on category "Date" and select a type.
8. Click OK button.
9. Click OK button.

Click on cell B1 to filter the latest date based on the selected value, the image above shows value EE selected and the latest date based on that value is 5/25/2010.

Lookup all values and find latest (earliest) date

The following formula looks in column C for the most recent date for each value in column B.

Formula in cell D3:

Array formula in cell D3:

Formula in cell D3:

How to copy array formula

1. Copy cell C2
2. Select cell range C3:C8
3. Paste

Lookup and find last date using multiple conditions

Formula in cell H3:

Array formula in cell H3:

Lookup and find latest date on multiple sheets

The following picture shows you a workbook with 4 worksheets. The formula in cell B3 looks for the latest date in all three worksheets using the condition in cell B2.

Array formula in cell B3:

Lookup and find latest date, return corresponding value on same row

Enter a quarter in cell G3.

Array formula in cell G3:

If you prefer a regular formula in G3:

=MAX(INDEX((B3:B19=G2)*C3:C19,))

Formula in cell G4:

Index & Match to Find Value by Latest Date in Microsoft Excel

If you are looking for a formula to find the lookup value & latest value by date, then this article is really helpful for you. In this article, we will learn how to find the matching value & then formula will check the output after checking the latest date.

Example: I need a formula to look up each specific product then find the price of the product on the latest date.

Following is the snapshot of data i.e. column A has Invoice No., column B has Date, column C has Product & column D has Prices.

The formula we are looking for should first of all check the Product from column C & then return the Price for the latest date.

We will use a combination of INDEX, MATCH & MAX functions to return the output.

In cell G3, the formula is

The above formula has used Max function to determine the latest date from all the given dates for the matching Product from column C. To test the above formula if we change the date in cell B7, then we will get the desired result. Refer below snapshot. In this way, we can deliver the price of the product with the latest date.

Here are all the observational notes using the formula in Excel
Notes :

This is an array formula. Hence, we need to press CTRL + SHIFT + END keys together to get the correct result.

Hope this article about How to lookup or find value with last Date in Excel is explanatory. Find more articles on calculating values and related Excel formulas here. If you liked our blogs, share them with your friends on Facebook. And also you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook. We would love to hear from you, do let us know how we can improve, complement or innovate our work and make it better for you. Write to us at info@exceltip.com.

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