Looking Up the Last Matching Value

Most lookups return the first match they find. But sometimes you want the last one: the most recent price for a product, the latest status update, or the final entry for a customer.

When a list grows over time and the same key appears many times, the bottom-most row is usually the freshest. A standard VLOOKUP or MATCH with exact match will stubbornly grab the top row instead.

This lesson shows several reliable ways to pull the last matching value.

MATCH(value, range, 0) scans top to bottom and stops at the very first exact hit. If "Apple" appears in rows 2, 5, and 9, MATCH returns 2.

That is perfect when keys are unique, but it ignores newer rows. To reach the last occurrence we need a technique that searches from the bottom or that returns the position of the final match.