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How to vlookup and return date format instead of number in Excel?

Author Siluvia Last modified

The vlookup function is used frequently in Excel for daily work. For example, you are trying to find a date based on the max value in a specified column with the Vlookup formula =VLOOKUP(MAX(C2:C8), C2:D8, 2, FALSE). However, you may notice that the date is displayed as a serial number instead of date format as below screenshot showed. Except for manually changing the cell formatting to date format, is there any handy way to handle it? This article will show you an easy way to solve this problem.

vlookup and return number when using vlookup function

Vlookup and return date format instead of a number in Excel

Vlookup and return date format instead of a number in Excel

If you want to get the date based on the max value in a certain column with the Vlookup function, and keep the date format in the destination cell. Please do as follows.

1. Please enter this formula into a cell and press Enter key to get the correct result. See screenshot:

=TEXT(VLOOKUP(MAX(C2:C8), C2:D8, 2, FALSE),"MM/DD/YY")

use TEXT function to Vlookup and return date format

Note: Please enclose the vlookup formula with TEXT() function. And don’t forget to specify the date format with double quotes at the end of the formula.

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