IFERROR

Return your own value when a formula produces any error, instead of showing #N/A or #REF!.

Syntax

IFERROR(value, value_if_error)

Argument	Required	Description
`value`	Required	The formula to evaluate.
`value_if_error`	Required	What to return if that formula produces any error at all.

Examples

Every example below was executed against VisiGrid engine 0.35.0 — not transcribed from another vendor's documentation. Reproduce any of them with vgrid calc.

Formula	Result	Notes
`=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(999,A2:D4,3,FALSE),"none")`	`none`	The lookup fails with #N/A; the fallback is returned instead.
`=IFERROR(1/0,"div by zero")`	`div by zero`	Catches #DIV/0! the same way.
`=IFERROR(D2/D3,"n/a")`	`0.71`	No error, so the original result comes through untouched.

It hides every error, not just the one you meant

This is the part worth understanding before reaching for it. IFERROR catches all errors — #N/A, #REF!, #DIV/0!, #VALUE!, #NAME? — and replaces them with your fallback.

That is fine when the only thing that can go wrong is a missing match. It is dangerous around anything else, because #REF! means your range is broken, and IFERROR will quietly report “none” instead:

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(999, A2:D4, 3, FALSE), "none")

If someone later deletes column C, that formula does not start failing. It keeps saying none, forever, and the spreadsheet looks like it is working.

What to use instead

For a missing lookup specifically, XLOOKUP takes a not-found value as an argument, so only a genuine miss is substituted and real errors still surface. See XLOOKUP vs VLOOKUP.
To test existence, COUNTIF returns 0 rather than an error, so there is nothing to suppress.
IFNA, where available, catches only #N/A and lets everything else through. That is usually what people mean when they write IFERROR.

Use IFERROR when you have thought about which errors are possible and decided you want all of them hidden. That is a narrower situation than its popularity suggests.

Excel compatibility

Matches Excel.