Forum Discussion
Lou365
Jul 30, 2025Copper Contributor
What is a Spill Error?
This has never happened before. Is it new? This occurred while creating a vlookup. Can I get help with this?
1 Reply
In recent versions of Excel, a formula in one cell can return results to multiple cells. For example, the formula
=SEQUENCE(4)
will return the numbers 1 to 4 in four cells:
The outline around the cells is the so-called spill area of the formula.
If one of those cells is already filled, the formula cannot return its full results, so it will display #SPILL!
In your VLOOKUP formula, if the first argument (the lookup value) is a multi-cell range, the formula will try to return multiple results. Apparently, there was not enough room for that.