Not understanding XLOOKUP arguments as they apply here

Yes — in practice, FALSE behaves the same as 0 for match_mode in XLOOKUP, meaning exact match only.

When you write:

=XLOOKUP(A2, B2:B10, C2:C10, , FALSE)

Excel interprets FALSE as 0, which means:

Exact match (default behavior).

Even though it works, FALSE is not officially documented for match_mode in XLOOKUP.

• In older functions like VLOOKUP, FALSE explicitly meant exact match.
• In XLOOKUP, Microsoft defines:

0 → exact match (default)

-1, 1, 2 → other match types

Use 0 instead of FALSE for clarity and consistency:

=XLOOKUP(A2, B2:B10, C2:C10, , 0).

If someone accidentally wrote match_mode = TRUE, that would be 1, which changes behavior entirely (exact or next larger). So FALSE is “safe” because it equals 0, but TRUE would be dangerous. That’s another reason to stick with 0.

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Hope this will help you.