VBA IF Statement – A Complete Guide

NOVEM BER 6, 2015 BY PAU L KELLY ·5 COMMEN TS

“Guess, if you can, and choose, if you dare.” – Pierre Corneille

Contents [hide] [hide]

 1 Quick Guide to the VBA If Statement
 2 What is If and why do you need it?
 3 The Test Data
 4 Format of the VBA If Then Statement
o 4.1 Indenting Between If and End If
 5 A Simple If Then Example
 6 If Conditions
 7 Using If ElseIf
 8 Using If Else
 9 Using If And/If Or
o 9.1 Using If And
o 9.2 Using If Or
o 9.3 Using If Not
 10 The IIF function
o 10.1 Using Nested IIf
o 10.2 What to Watch Out For
o 10.3 If Versus IIf
 11 Using Select Case
o 11.1 Using Case Is
 12 Try this Exercise
o 12.1 Answer to Exercise
 13 What’s Next?
 14 Get the Free eBook

Quick Guide to the VBA If Statement

Description Format Example
If Then If [condition is true] Then If score = 100 Then
[do something] Debug.Print "Perfect"
End If End If

If Else If [condition is true] Then If score = 100 Then

[do something] Debug.Print "Perfect"
Else Else
[do something] Debug.Print "Try
End If again"
End If

If ElseIf If [condition 1 is true] Then If score = 100 Then

[do something] Debug.Print "Perfect"
ElseIf [condition 2 is true] Then ElseIf score > 50 Then
[do something] Debug.Print "Passed"
End If ElseIf score <= 50 Then
Debug.Print "Try
again"
End If
Else and ElseIf If [condition 1 is true] Then If score = 100 Then
(Else must [do something] Debug.Print "Perfect"
come ElseIf [condition 2 is true] Then ElseIf score > 50 Then
after ElseIf's) [do something] Debug.Print "Passed"
Else ElseIf score > 30 Then
[do something] Debug.Print "Try
End If again"
Else
Debug.Print "Yikes"
End If
If without Endif If [condition is true] Then [do If value <= 0 Then value = 0
(One line only) something]

The following code shows a simple example of using the VBA If statement

If Range("A1").Value > 5 Then

Debug.Print "Value is greater than five."

ElseIf Range("A1").Value < 5 Then

Debug.Print "value is less than five."

Else

Debug.Print "value is equal to five."

End If

What is If and why do you need it?

The VBA If statement is used to allow your code to make choices when it is running.
You will often want to make choices based on the data your macros reads.
For example, you may want to read only the students who have marks greater than 70. As you read through each student
you would use the If Statement to check the marks of each student.
The important word in the last sentence is check. The If statement is used to check a value and then to perform a task
based on the results of that check.

The Test Data

We’re going to use the following test data for the code examples in this post.

Click Here to Download the Test Data

Format of the VBA If Then Statement

The format of the If Then statement is as follows

If [condition is true] Then

The If keyword is followed by a Condition and the keyword Then

Every time you use an If Then statement you must use a matching End If statement.
When the condition evaluates to true, all the lines between If Then and End If are processed.

If [condition is true] Then

[lines of code]

[lines of code]

[lines of code]

End If

To make your code more readable it is good practice to indent the lines between the If Then and End If statements.

Indenting Between If and End If

Indenting simply means to move a line of code one tab to the right. The rule of thumb is to indent between start and end
statements like
Sub … End Sub
If Then … End If
If Then… ElseIf … Else … Endif
For … Next
Do While … Loop
Select Case … End Case

To indent the code you can highlight the lines to indent and press the Tab key. Pressing Shift + Tab will Outdent the code
i.e. move it one tab to the left.
You can also use the icons from the Visual Basic Toolbar to indent/outdent the code
 Select code and click icons to indent/outdent

If you look at any code examples on this website you will see that the code is indented.

A Simple If Then Example

The following code prints out the names of all students with marks greater than 50 in French.

Sub ReadMarks()

Dim i As Long

' Go through the marks columns

For i = 2 To 11

' Check if marks greater than 50

If Range("C" & i) > 50 Then

' Print student name to the Immediate Window(Ctrl + G)

Debug.Print Range("A" & i) & " " & Range("B" & i)

End If

Next

End Sub

Results
Bryan Snyder
Juanita Moody
Douglas Blair
Leah Frank
Monica Banks
Play around with this example and check the value or the > sign and see how the results change.

If Conditions
The piece of code between the If and the Then keywords is called the condition. A condition is a statement that evaluates
to true or false. They are mostly used with Loops and If statements. When you create a condition you use signs like
>,<,<>,>=,<=,=.
The following are examples of conditions

Condition This is true when

x<5 x is less than 5

x <= 5 x is less than or equal to 5

x>5 x is greater than 5

x >= 5 x is greater than or equal to 5

x=5 x is equal to 5

x <> 5 x does not equal 5

x > 5 And x < 10 x is greater than 5 AND x is less than 10

x = 2 Or x >10 x is equal to 2 OR x is greater than 10

Range("A1") = "John" Cell A1 contains text "John"

Range("A1") <> "John" Cell A1 does not contain text "John"

You may have noticed x=5 as a condition. This should not be confused with x=5 when used as an assignment.
When equals is used in a condition it means “is the left side equal to the right side”.

The following table demonstrates how the equals sign is used in conditions and assignments

Using Equals Statement Type Meaning

Loop Until x = Condition Is x equal to 5

5
Using Equals Statement Type Meaning

Do While x = 5 Condition Is x equal to 5

If x = 5 Then Condition Is x equal to 5

For x = 1 To 5 Assignment Set the value of x to 1, then to 2 etc.

x=5 Assignment Set the value of x to 5

b=6=5 Assignment and Assign b to the result of condition 6 = 5

Condition

x= Assignment Assign x to the value returned from the

MyFunc(5,6) function

The last entry in the above table shows a statement with two equals. The first equals sign is the assignment and any
following equals signs are conditions.
This might seem confusing at first but think of it like this. Any statement that starts with a variable and an equals is in the
following format
[variable] [=] [evaluate this part]

So whatever is on the right of the equals sign is evaluated and the result is placed in the variable. Taking the last three
assignments again, you could look at them like this
[x] [=] [5]
[b] [=] [6 = 5]
[x] [=] [MyFunc(5,6)]

Using If ElseIf
The ElseIf statement allows you to choose from more than one option. In the following example we print for marks that
are in the Distinction or High Distinction range.

Sub UseElseIf()

If Marks >= 85 Then

Debug.Print "High Destinction"

 ElseIf Marks >= 75 Then

Debug.Print "Destinction"

End If

End Sub

The important thing to understand is that order is important. The If condition is checked first.
If it is true then “High Distinction” is printed and the If statement ends.
If it is false then the code moves to the next ElseIf and checks it condition.
Let’s swap around the If and ElseIf from the last example. The code now look like this

Sub UseElseIfWrong()

' This code is incorrect as the ElseIf will never be true

If Marks >= 75 Then

Debug.Print "Destinction"

ElseIf Marks >= 85 Then

' code will never reach here

Debug.Print "High Destinction"

End If

End Sub

In this case we check for a value being over 75 first. We will never print “High Distinction” because if a value is over 85 is
will trigger the first if statement.

To avoid these kind of problems we should use two conditions. These help state exactly what you are looking for a remove
any confusion. The example below shows how to use these. We will look at more multiple conditions in the section below.

If marks >= 75 And marks < 85 Then

Debug.Print "Destinction"

ElseIf marks >= 85 And marks <= 100 Then

Debug.Print "High Destinction"

End If
Let’s expand the original code. You can use as many ElseIf statements as you like. We will add some more to take into
account all our mark classifications.

Using If Else
The Else statement is used as a catch all. It basically means “if no conditions were true” or “everything else”. In the
previous code example, we didn’t include a print statement for a fail mark. We can add this using Else.

Sub UseElse()

If Marks >= 85 Then

Debug.Print "High Destinction"

ElseIf Marks >= 75 Then

Debug.Print "Destinction"

ElseIf Marks >= 55 Then

Debug.Print "Credit"

ElseIf Marks >= 40 Then

Debug.Print "Pass"

Else

' For all other marks

Debug.Print "Fail"

End If

End Sub

So if it is not one of the other types then it is a fail.

Let’s write some code to through our sample data and print the student and their classification.

Sub AddClass()

' get the last row

Dim startRow As Long, lastRow As Long

startRow = 2

lastRow = Cells(Cells.Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row

Dim i As Long, Marks As Long

 Dim sClass As String

' Go through the marks columns

For i = startRow To lastRow

Marks = Range("C" & i)

' Check marks and classify accordingly

If Marks >= 85 Then

sClass = "High Destinction"

ElseIf Marks >= 75 Then

sClass = "Destinction"

ElseIf Marks >= 55 Then

sClass = "Credit"

ElseIf Marks >= 40 Then

sClass = "Pass"

Else

' For all other marks

sClass = "Fail"

End If

' Write out the class to column E

Range("E" & i) = sClass

Next

End Sub

The results look like this with column E containing the classification of the marks
 Results

Using If And/If Or
You can have more than one condition in an If Statement. The VBA keywords And and Or allow use of multiple
conditions.
These words work in a similar way to how you would use them in English.
Let’s look at our sample data again. We now want to print all the students that got over between 50 and 80 marks.
We use And to add an extra condition. The code is saying: if the mark is greater than or equal 50 and less than 75 then
print the student name.

Sub CheckMarkRange()

Dim i As Long, marks As Long

For i = 2 To 11

' Store marks for current student

marks = Range("C" & i)

' Check if marks greater than 50 and less than 75

If marks >= 50 And marks < 80 Then

' Print first and last name to Immediate window(Ctrl G)

Debug.Print Range("A" & i) & Range("B" & i)

End If

Next
End Sub

Results
Douglas Blair
Leah Frank
Monica Banks

In our next example we want the students who did History or French. So in this case we are saying if the student did
History OR if the student did French.

Sub ReadMarksSubject()

Dim i As Long, marks As Long

' Go through the marks columns

For i = 2 To 11

marks = Range("D" & i)

' Check if marks greater than 50 and less than 80

If marks = "History" Or marks = "French" Then

' Print first and last name to Immediate window(Ctrl G)

Debug.Print Range("A" & i) & " " & Range("B" & i)

End If

Next

End Sub

Results
Bryan Snyder
Bradford Patrick
Douglas Blair
Ken Oliver
Leah Frank
Rosalie Norman
Jackie Morgan
Using Multiple conditions like this is often a source of errors. The rule of thumb to remember is to keep them as simple as
possible.
Using If And
The AND works as follows

Condition 1 Condition 2 Result

TRUE TRUE TRUE

TRUE FALSE FALSE

FALSE TRUE FALSE

FALSE FALSE FALSE

What you will notice is that AND is only true when all conditions are true

Using If Or
The OR keyword works as follows

Condition 1 Condition 2 Result

TRUE TRUE TRUE

TRUE FALSE TRUE

FALSE TRUE TRUE

FALSE FALSE FALSE

What you will notice is that OR is only false when all the conditions are false.
Mixing AND and OR together can make the code difficult to read and lead to errors. Using parenthesis can make the
conditions clearer.

Sub OrWithAnd()

Dim subject As String, marks As Long

subject = "History"

marks = 5

If (subject = "French" Or subject = "History") And marks >= 6 Then

Debug.Print "True"

Else

Debug.Print "False"

End If

End Sub

Using If Not
There is also a NOT operator. This returns the opposite result of the condition.

Condition Result

TRUE FALSE

FALSE TRUE

The following two lines of code are equivalent.

If marks < 40 Then

If Not marks >= 40 Then

as are

If True Then
If Not False Then

and

If False Then

If Not True Then

Putting the condition in parenthesis makes the code easier to read

If Not (marks >= 40) Then

A common usage of Not when checking if an object has been set. Take a worksheet for example. Here we declare the
worksheet

Dim mySheet As Worksheet

' Some code here

We want to check mySheet is valid before we use it. We can check if it is nothing.

If mySheet Is Nothing Then

There is no way to check if it is something as there is many different ways it could be something. Therefore we
use Not with Nothing

If Not mySheet Is Nothing Then

If you find this a bit confusing you can use parenthesis like this

If Not (mySheet Is Nothing) Then

The IIF function

VBA has an fuction similar to the Excel If function. In Excel you will often use the If function as follows:
=IF(F2=””,””,F1/F2)
The format is
=If(condition, action if true, action if false).
VBA has the IIf statement which works the same way. Let’s look at an example. In the following code we use IIf to check
the value of the variable val. If the value is greater than 10 we print true otherwise we print false.

Sub CheckVal()

Dim result As Boolean

Dim val As Long

' Prints True

val = 11

result = IIf(val > 10, True, False)

Debug.Print result

' Prints false

val = 5

result = IIf(val > 10, True, False)

Debug.Print result

End Sub

In our next example we want to print out Pass or Fail beside each student depending on their marks. In the first piece of
code we will use the normal VBA If statement to do this.

Sub CheckMarkRange()

Dim i As Long, marks As Long

For i = 2 To 11

' Store marks for current student

marks = Range("C" & i)

' Check if student passes or fails

If marks >= 40 Then

' Write out names to to Column F

Range("E" & i) = "Pass"

 Else

Range("E" & i) = "Fail"

End If

Next

End Sub

In the next piece of code we will use the IIf function. You can see that the code is much neater here.

Sub CheckMarkRange()

Dim i As Long, marks As Long

For i = 2 To 11

' Store marks for current student

marks = Range("C" & i)

' Check if student passes or fails

Range("E" & i) = IIf(marks >= 40,"Pass","Fail")

Next

End Sub

You can see the IIf function is very useful for simple cases where you are dealing with two possible options.

Using Nested IIf

You can also nest IIf statements like in Excel. This means using the result of one IIf with another. Let’s add another result
type to our previous examples. Now we want to print Distinction, Pass or Fail for each student.
Using the normal VBA we would do it like this

Sub CheckResultType2()
 Dim i As Long, marks As Long

For i = 2 To 11

' Store marks for current student

marks = Range("C" & i)

If marks >= 75 Then

Range("E" & i) = "Distinction"

ElseIf marks >= 40 Then

' Write out names to to Column F

Range("E" & i) = "Pass"

Else

Range("E" & i) = "Fail"

End If

Next

End Sub

Using nested IIfs we could do it like this

Sub UsingNestedIIF()

Dim i As Long, marks As Long, result As String

For i = 2 To 11

marks = Range("C" & i)

result = IIf(marks >= 55,"Credit",IIf(marks >= 40,"Pass","Fail"))

Range("E" & i) = result

Next
End Sub

Using nested IIf is fine in simple cases like this. The code is simple to read and therefore not likely to have errors.

What to Watch Out For

It is important to understand that the IIf function always evaluates both the True and False parts of the statement regardless
of the condition.
In the following example we want to divide by marks when it does not equal zero. If it equals zero we want to return zero.

marks = 0

total = IIf(marks = 0, 0, 60 / marks)

However, when marks is zero the code will give a “Divide by zero” error. This is because it evaluates both the True and
False statements. The False statement here i.e. (60 / Marks) evaluates to an error because marks is zero.
If we use a normal IF statement it will only run the appropriate line.

marks = 0

If marks = 0 Then

'Only executes this line when marks is zero

total = 0

Else

'Only executes this line when marks is Not zero

total = 60 / marks

End If

What this also means is that if you have Functions for True and False then both will be executed. So IIF will run both
Functions even though it only uses one return value. For example

'Both Functions will be executed every time

total = IIf(marks = 0, Func1, Func2)

(Thanks to David for pointing out this behaviour in the comments)

If Versus IIf
So which is better?
You can see for this case that IIf is shorter to write and neater. However if the conditions get complicated you are better
off using the normal If statement. A disadvantage of IIf is that it is not well known so other users may not understand it as
well as code written with a normal if statement.
Also as we discussed in the last section IIF always evaluates the True and False parts so if you are dealing with a lot of
data the IF statement would be faster.
My rule of thumb is to use IIf when it will be simple to read and doesn’t require function calls. For more complex cases
use the normal If statement.

Using Select Case

The Select Case statement is an alternative way to write an If statment with lots of ElseIf’s. You will find this type of
statement in most popular programming languages where it is called the Switch statement. For example Java, C#, C++ and
Javascript all have a switch statement.
The format is

Select Case [variable]

Case [condition 1]

Case [condition 2]

Case [condition n]

Case Else

End Select

Let’s take our AddClass example from above and rewrite it using a Select Case statement.

Sub AddClass()

' get the last row

Dim startRow As Long, lastRow As Long

startRow = 2

lastRow = Cells(Cells.Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row

Dim i As Long, Marks As Long

Dim sClass As String

' Go through the marks columns

 For i = startRow To lastRow

Marks = Range("C" & i)

' Check marks and classify accordingly

If Marks >= 85 Then

sClass = "High Destinction"

ElseIf Marks >= 75 Then

sClass = "Destinction"

ElseIf Marks >= 55 Then

sClass = "Credit"

ElseIf Marks >= 40 Then

sClass = "Pass"

Else

' For all other marks

sClass = "Fail"

End If

' Write out the class to column E

Range("E" & i) = sClass

Next

End Sub

The following is the same code using a Select Case statement. The main thing you will notice is that we use “Case 85 to
100” rather than “marks >=85 And marks <=100”.

Sub AddClassWithSelect()

' get the first and last row

Dim firstRow As Long, lastRow As Long

firstRow = 2

lastRow = Cells(Cells.Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row

Dim i As Long, marks As Long

Dim sClass As String

 ' Go through the marks columns

For i = firstRow To lastRow

marks = Range("C" & i)

' Check marks and classify accordingly

Select Case marks

Case 85 To 100

sClass = "High Destinction"

Case 75 To 84

sClass = "Destinction"

Case 55 To 74

sClass = "Credit"

Case 40 To 54

sClass = "Pass"

Case Else

' For all other marks

sClass = "Fail"

End Select

' Write out the class to column E

Range("E" & i) = sClass

Next

End Sub

Using Case Is
You could rewrite the select statement in the same format as the original ElseIf. You can use Is with Case.

Select Case marks

Case Is >= 85

sClass = "High Destinction"

Case Is >= 75

sClass = "Destinction"

Case Is >= 55

sClass = "Credit"
 Case Is >= 40

sClass = "Pass"

Case Else

' For all other marks

sClass = "Fail"

End Select

You can use Is to check for multiple values. In the following code we are checking if marks equals 5, 7 or 9.

Sub TestMultiValues()

Dim marks As Long

marks = 7

Select Case marks

Case Is = 5, 7, 9

Debug.Print True

Case Else

Debug.Print False

End Select

End Sub

Try this Exercise

We covered a lot in this post about the If statement. A good way to help you understand it is by trying to write some code
using the topics we covered. The following exercise uses the test data from this post. The answer to the exercise is below.

Click Here to Download the Test Data

We are going to use cell G1 to write the name of a subject.

In the columns H to L write out all the students who have marks in this subject. We want to classify their result as pass or
fail. Marks below 40 is a fail and marks 40 or above is a pass.
Column H: First name
Column I: Second name
Column J: Marks
Column H: Subject
Column I: Result type – Pass or Fail

If cell G1 contains “French” then your result should look like this

Result of exercise

Answer to Exercise
The following code shows how to complete the above exercise. Note: There are many ways to complete this so don’t be
put off if your code is different.

Sub WriteSubjectResults()

' Get subject

Dim subject As String

subject = Range("G1")

If subject = "" Then

Exit Sub

End If

' Get first and last row

Dim firstRow As Long, lastRow As Long

firstRow = 2

lastRow = Cells(Cells.Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row

' Clear any existing output

Range("H:L").ClearContents

' Track output row

Dim outRow As Long

outRow = 1
 Dim i As Long, marks As Long, rowSubject As String

' Read through data

For i = firstRow To lastRow

marks = Range("C" & i)

rowSubject = Range("D" & i)

If rowSubject = subject Then

' Write out student details if subject French

Range("A" & i & ":" & "D" & i).Copy

Range("H" & outRow).PasteSpecial xlPasteValues

' Write out pass or fail

If marks < 40 Then

Range("L" & outRow) = "Fail"

ElseIf marks >= 40 Then

Range("L" & outRow) = "Pass"

End If

' Move output to next row

outRow = outRow + 1

End If

Next i

End Sub