20 Excel Formulas Everyone Should Know in 2026 (With Examples)

You don't need to memorize 400 Excel functions. About 20 of them cover 90% of real spreadsheet work. Here they are, grouped by what you actually want to do.

Math & counting

• SUM — add a range. =SUM(A1:A10)
• SUMIF — add only matching rows. =SUMIF(A:A, "Paid", B:B)
• COUNTIF — count matching rows. =COUNTIF(A:A, "Done")
• AVERAGE / AVERAGEIF — mean of a range, optionally filtered.
• ROUND — control decimals. =ROUND(A1, 2)

Lookups (the big one)

• XLOOKUP — the modern replacement for VLOOKUP. =XLOOKUP(value, lookup_range, return_range)
• VLOOKUP — still everywhere in older sheets. =VLOOKUP(value, table, col, FALSE)
• INDEX + MATCH — flexible lookup that works in any direction.

Logic

• IF — branch on a condition. =IF(A1>100, "High", "Low")
• IFS — multiple conditions without nesting.
• IFERROR — replace ugly errors. =IFERROR(formula, "")
• AND / OR — combine conditions inside IF.

Text

• TEXTJOIN — merge values with a separator. =TEXTJOIN(", ", TRUE, A1:A5)
• CONCAT — glue cells together.
• LEFT / RIGHT / MID — pull part of a string.
• TRIM — kill extra spaces (a lifesaver on imported data).
• PROPER / UPPER / LOWER — fix capitalization.

Dates

• TODAY / NOW — current date/time.
• DATEDIF — difference between two dates.
• EOMONTH — last day of a month, great for reporting.

Can't remember the syntax?

That's normal — nobody memorizes argument order. Just describe what you want in plain English and let our free Excel Formula Generator write the exact formula for Excel or Google Sheets, with an explanation.

Practice beats memorizing

Pick three formulas from this list you don't use yet — maybe XLOOKUP, SUMIF, and TEXTJOIN — and force yourself to use them this week. They compound fast.

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