How to Look Up Across a Row with HLOOKUP in Excel

Read a sideways rate card: find a column by its header and return a value from any row beneath it.

You will learn to

• Look up a value in a table whose keys run across the top row
• Pick the return row dynamically with MATCH
• Combine two lookups into one answer

How it works

HLOOKUP is VLOOKUP turned on its side. It searches the top row of a table for a value and returns the item from the same column, a set number of rows down: =HLOOKUP("Z4",B1:G4,2,FALSE) returns the second-row value under the Z4 header. Use FALSE as the last argument for an exact match.

Rate cards, price grids and monthly reports are often laid out with keys across the top. When the row you need can change, let MATCH find the row number instead of typing it: =HLOOKUP(zone,B1:G4,MATCH(service,A1:A4,0),FALSE).

=HLOOKUP(B6,B1:G4,2,FALSE)