Note: this answer was motivated by this comment. The purpose of UsedRange is different from what is mentioned in the answer above.

As to the correct way of finding the last used cell, one has first to decide what is considered used, and then select a suitable method. I conceive at least three meanings:

1. Used = non-blank, i.e., having data.

2. Used = "... in use, meaning the section that contains data or formatting." As per official documentation, this is the criterion used by Excel at the time of saving. See also this official documentation. If one is not aware of this, the criterion may produce unexpected results, but it may also be intentionally exploited (less often, surely), e.g., to highlight or print specific regions, which may eventually have no data. And, of course, it is desirable as a criterion for the range to use when saving a workbook, lest losing part of one's work.

3. Used = "... in use, meaning the section that contains data or formatting" or conditional formatting. Same as 2., but also including cells that are the target for any Conditional Formatting rule.

How to find the last used cell depends on what you want (your criterion).

For criterion 1, I suggest reading this answer. Note that UsedRange is cited as unreliable. I think that is misleading (i.e., "unfair" to UsedRange), as UsedRange is simply not meant to report the last cell containing data. So it should not be used in this case, as indicated in that answer. See also this comment.

For criterion 2, UsedRange is the most reliable option, as compared to other options also designed for this use. It even makes it unnecessary to save a workbook to make sure that the last cell is updated. Ctrl+End will go to a wrong cell prior to saving (“The last cell is not reset until you save the worksheet”, from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa139976%28v=office.10%29.aspx. It is an old reference, but in this respect valid).

For criterion 3, I do not know any built-in method. Criterion 2 does not account for Conditional Formatting. One may have formatted cells, based on formulas, which are not detected by UsedRange or Ctrl+End. In the figure, the last cell is B3, since formatting was applied explicitly to it. Cells B6:D7 have a format derived from a Conditional Formatting rule, and this is not detected even by UsedRange. Accounting for this would require some VBA programming.

As to your specific question: What's the reason behind this?

Your code uses the first cell in your range E4:E48 as a trampoline, for jumping down with End(xlDown).

The "erroneous" output will obtain if there are no non-blank cells in your range other than perhaps the first. Then, you are leaping in the dark, i.e., down the worksheet (you should note the difference between blank and empty string!).

Note that:

1. If your range contains non-contiguous non-blank cells, then it will also give a wrong result.

2. If there is only one non-blank cell, but it is not the first one, your code will still give you the correct result.

I created this one-stop function for determining the last row, column and cell, be it for data, formatted (grouped/commented/hidden) cells or conditional formatting.

Sub LastCellMsg() Dim strResult As String Dim lngDataRow As Long Dim lngDataCol As Long Dim strDataCell As String Dim strDataFormatRow As String Dim lngDataFormatCol As Long Dim strDataFormatCell As String Dim oFormatCond As FormatCondition Dim lngTempRow As Long Dim lngTempCol As Long Dim lngCFRow As Long Dim lngCFCol As Long Dim strCFCell As String Dim lngOverallRow As Long Dim lngOverallCol As Long Dim strOverallCell As String With ActiveSheet If .ListObjects.Count > 0 Then MsgBox "Cannot return reliable results, as there is at least one table in the worksheet." Exit Sub End If strResult = "Workbook name: " & .Parent.Name & vbCrLf strResult = strResult & "Sheet name: " & .Name & vbCrLf 'DATA: 'last data row If Application.WorksheetFunction.CountA(.Cells) <> 0 Then lngDataRow = .Cells.Find(What:="*", _ After:=.Range("A1"), _ Lookat:=xlPart, _ LookIn:=xlFormulas, _ SearchOrder:=xlByRows, _ SearchDirection:=xlPrevious, _ MatchCase:=False).Row Else lngDataRow = 1 End If 'strResult = strResult & "Last data row: " & lngDataRow & vbCrLf 'last data column If Application.WorksheetFunction.CountA(.Cells) <> 0 Then lngDataCol = .Cells.Find(What:="*", _ After:=.Range("A1"), _ Lookat:=xlPart, _ LookIn:=xlFormulas, _ SearchOrder:=xlByColumns, _ SearchDirection:=xlPrevious, _ MatchCase:=False).Column Else lngDataCol = 1 End If 'strResult = strResult & "Last data column: " & lngDataCol & vbCrLf 'last data cell strDataCell = Replace(Cells(lngDataRow, lngDataCol).Address, "$", vbNullString) strResult = strResult & "Last data cell: " & strDataCell & vbCrLf 'FORMATS: 'last data/formatted/grouped/commented/hidden row strDataFormatRow = StrReverse(Split(StrReverse(.UsedRange.Address), "$")(0)) 'strResult = strResult & "Last data/formatted row: " & strDataFormatRow & vbCrLf 'last data/formatted/grouped/commented/hidden column lngDataFormatCol = Range(StrReverse(Split(StrReverse(.UsedRange.Address), "$")(1)) & "1").Column 'strResult = strResult & "Last data/formatted column: " & lngDataFormatCol & vbCrLf 'last data/formatted/grouped/commented/hidden cell strDataFormatCell = Replace(Cells(strDataFormatRow, lngDataFormatCol).Address, "$", vbNullString) strResult = strResult & "Last data/formatted cell: " & strDataFormatCell & vbCrLf 'CONDITIONAL FORMATS: For Each oFormatCond In .Cells.FormatConditions 'last conditionally-formatted row lngTempRow = CLng(StrReverse(Split(StrReverse(oFormatCond.AppliesTo.Address), "$")(0))) If lngTempRow > lngCFRow Then lngCFRow = lngTempRow 'last conditionally-formatted column lngTempCol = Range(StrReverse(Split(StrReverse(oFormatCond.AppliesTo.Address), "$")(1)) & "1").Column If lngTempCol > lngCFCol Then lngCFCol = lngTempCol Next 'no results are returned for Conditional Format if there is no such If lngCFRow <> 0 Then 'strResult = strResult & "Last cond-formatted row: " & lngCFRow & vbCrLf 'strResult = strResult & "Last cond-formatted column: " & lngCFCol & vbCrLf 'last conditionally-formatted cell strCFCell = Replace(Cells(lngCFRow, lngCFCol).Address, "$", vbNullString) strResult = strResult & "Last cond-formatted cell: " & strCFCell & vbCrLf End If 'OVERALL: lngOverallRow = Application.WorksheetFunction.Max(lngDataRow, strDataFormatRow, lngCFRow) 'strResult = strResult & "Last overall row: " & lngOverallRow & vbCrLf lngOverallCol = Application.WorksheetFunction.Max(lngDataCol, lngDataFormatCol, lngCFCol) 'strResult = strResult & "Last overall column: " & lngOverallCol & vbCrLf strOverallCell = Replace(.Cells(lngOverallRow, lngOverallCol).Address, "$", vbNullString) strResult = strResult & "Last overall cell: " & strOverallCell & vbCrLf MsgBox strResult Debug.Print strResult End With End Sub 

Results look like this:

For more detailed results, some lines in the code can be uncommented:

One limitation exists - if there are tables in the sheet, results can become unreliable, so I decided to avoid running the code in this case:

If .ListObjects.Count > 0 Then MsgBox "Cannot return reliable results, as there is at least one table in the worksheet." Exit Sub End If 

Since the original question is about problems with finding the last cell, in this answer I will list the various ways you can get unexpected results; see my answer to "How can I find last row that contains data in the Excel sheet with a macro?" for my take on solving this.

I'll start by expanding on the answer by sancho.s and the comment by GlennFromIowa, adding even more detail:

[...] one has first to decide what is considered used. I see at least 6 meanings. Cell has:

• 1) data, i.e., a formula, possibly resulting in a blank value;
• 2) a value, i.e., a non-blank formula or constant;
• 3) formatting;
• 4) conditional formatting;
• 5) a shape (including Comment) overlapping the cell;
• 6) involvement in a Table (List Object).

Which combination do you want to test for? Some (such as Tables) may be more difficult to test for, and some may be rare (such as a shape outside of data range), but others may vary based on the situation (e.g., formulas with blank values).

Other things you might want to consider:

• A) Can there be hidden rows (e.g. autofilter), blank cells or blank rows?
• B) What kind of performance is acceptable?
• C) Can the VBA macro affect the workbook or the application settings in any way?

With that in mind, let's see how the common ways of getting the "last cell" can produce unexpected results:

• The .End(xlDown) code from the question will break most easily (e.g. with a single non-empty cell or when there are blank cells in between) for the reasons explained in the answer by Siddharth Rout here (search for "xlDown is equally unreliable.") 👎
• Any solution based on Counting (CountA or Cells*.Count) or .CurrentRegion will also break in presence of blank cells or rows 👎
• A solution involving .End(xlUp) to search backwards from the end of a column will, just as CTRL+UP, look for data (formulas producing a blank value are considered "data") in visible rows (so using it with autofilter enabled might produce incorrect results ⚠️).

  You have to take care to avoid the standard pitfalls (for details I'll again refer to the answer by Siddharth Rout here, look for the "Find Last Row in a Column" section), such as hard-coding the last row (Range("A65536").End(xlUp)) instead of relying on sht.Rows.Count.

• .SpecialCells(xlLastCell) is equivalent to CTRL+END, returning the bottom-most and right-most cell of the "used range", so all caveats that apply to relying on the "used range", apply to this method as well. In addition, the "used range" is only reset when saving the workbook and when accessing worksheet.UsedRange, so xlLastCell might produce stale results⚠️ with unsaved modifications (e.g. after some rows were deleted). See the nearby answer by dotNET.
• sht.UsedRange (described in detail in the answer by sancho.s here) considers both data and formatting (though not conditional formatting) and resets the "used range" of the worksheet, which may or may not be what you want.

  Note that a common mistake ️is to use .UsedRange.Rows.Count⚠️, which returns the number of rows in the used range, not the last row number (they will be different if the first few rows are blank), for details see newguy's answer to How can I find last row that contains data in the Excel sheet with a macro?

• .Find allows you to find the last row with any data (including formulas) or a non-blank value in any column. You can choose whether you're interested in formulas or values, but the catch is that it resets the defaults in the Excel's Find dialog ️️⚠️, which can be highly confusing to your users. It also needs to be used carefully, see the answer by Siddharth Rout here (section "Find Last Row in a Sheet")
• More explicit solutions that check individual Cells' in a loop are generally slower than re-using an Excel function (although can still be performant), but let you specify exactly what you want to find. See my solution based on UsedRange and VBA arrays to find the last cell with data in the given column -- it handles hidden rows, filters, blanks, does not modify the Find defaults and is quite performant.

Whatever solution you pick, be careful

• to use Long instead of Integer to store the row numbers (to avoid getting Overflow with more than 65k rows) and
• to always specify the worksheet you're working with (i.e. Dim ws As Worksheet ... ws.Range(...) instead of Range(...))
• when using .Value (which is a Variant) avoid implicit casts like .Value <> "" as they will fail if the cell contains an error value.

One important note to keep in mind when using the solution ...

LastRow = ws.Cells.Find(What:="*", After:=ws.range("a1"), SearchOrder:=xlByRows, SearchDirection:=xlPrevious).Row 

... is to ensure that your LastRow variable is of Long type:

Dim LastRow as Long 

Otherwise you will end up getting OVERFLOW errors in certain situations in .XLSX workbooks

This is my encapsulated function that I drop in to various code uses.

Private Function FindLastRow(ws As Worksheet) As Long ' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ' Find the last used Row on a Worksheet ' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If WorksheetFunction.CountA(ws.Cells) > 0 Then ' Search for any entry, by searching backwards by Rows. FindLastRow = ws.Cells.Find(What:="*", After:=ws.range("a1"), SearchOrder:=xlByRows, SearchDirection:=xlPrevious).Row End If End Function 

I wonder that nobody has mentioned this, But the easiest way of getting the last used cell is:

Function GetLastCell(sh as Worksheet) As Range GetLastCell = sh.Cells(1,1).SpecialCells(xlLastCell) End Function 

This essentially returns the same cell that you get by Ctrl + End after selecting Cell A1.

A word of caution: Excel keeps track of the most bottom-right cell that was ever used in a worksheet. So if for example you enter something in B3 and something else in H8 and then later on delete the contents of H8, pressing Ctrl + End will still take you to H8 cell. The above function will have the same behavior.

I would add to the answer given by Siddarth Rout to say that the CountA call can be skipped by having Find return a Range object, instead of a row number, and then test the returned Range object to see if it is Nothing (blank worksheet).

Also, I would have my version of any LastRow procedure return a zero for a blank worksheet, then I can know it is blank.

Updated End of 2025

With The TrimRange Function we have a pretty simple answer that does not have any of previous issues and offers more flexibility:

=ROWS(TRIMRANGE(A:D,2))

Note That:

• Accurately accounts for any cell that would be counted using the COUNTA function
• Avoids VBA
• Can be leveraged across MULTIPLE columns
• Is over a thousand times faster than previous options of =Match(2,1/A:A<>"") or using filter and xmatch
• Comparable speed to VBA's .End(xlUp) method, but doesn't ignore hidden rows
• Does not modify your find settings
• Is not a volatile function
• Can be converted to a customer function by creating named range of =LAMBDA(colRange,ROWS(TRIMRANGE(colRange,2))) see below in usage

Examples as Function:

I was looking for a way to mimic the CTRL+Shift+End, so dotNET solution is great, except with my Excel 2010 I need to add a set if I want to avoid an error:

Function GetLastCell(sh As Worksheet) As Range Set GetLastCell = sh.Cells(1, 1).SpecialCells(xlLastCell) End Function 

and how to check this for yourself:

Sub test() Dim ws As Worksheet, r As Range Set ws = ActiveWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1") Set r = GetLastCell(ws) MsgBox r.Column & "-" & r.Row End Sub 

However this question is seeking to find the last row using VBA, I think it would be good to include an array formula for worksheet function as this gets visited frequently:

{=ADDRESS(MATCH(INDEX(D:D,MAX(IF(D:D<>"",ROW(D:D)-ROW(D1)+1)),1),D:D,0),COLUMN(D:D))} 

You need to enter the formula without brackets and then hit Shift + Ctrl + Enter to make it an array formula.

This will give you address of last used cell in the column D.

Thanks to pgsystemtester, this will give you the row number of last used cell:

{=MATCH(INDEX(D:D,MAX(IF(D:D<>"",ROW(D:D)-ROW(D1)+1)),1),D:D,0)} 

sub last_filled_cell() msgbox range("A65536").end(xlup).row end sub 

Here, A65536 is the last cell in the Column A this code was tested on excel 2003.

For the last 3+ years these are the functions that I am using for finding last row and last column per defined column(for row) and row(for column):

Last Column:

Function lastCol(Optional wsName As String, Optional rowToCheck As Long = 1) As Long Dim ws As Worksheet If wsName = vbNullString Then Set ws = ActiveSheet Else Set ws = Worksheets(wsName) End If lastCol = ws.Cells(rowToCheck, ws.Columns.Count).End(xlToLeft).Column End Function 

Last Row:

Function lastRow(Optional wsName As String, Optional columnToCheck As Long = 1) As Long Dim ws As Worksheet If wsName = vbNullString Then Set ws = ActiveSheet Else Set ws = Worksheets(wsName) End If lastRow = ws.Cells(ws.Rows.Count, columnToCheck).End(xlUp).Row End Function 

For the case of the OP, this is the way to get the last row in column E:

Debug.Print lastRow(columnToCheck:=Range("E4:E48").Column)

Last Row, counting empty rows with data:

Here we may use the well-known Excel formulas, which give us the last row of a worksheet in Excel, without involving VBA - =IFERROR(LOOKUP(2,1/(NOT(ISBLANK(A:A))),ROW(A:A)),0)

In order to put this in VBA and not to write anything in Excel, using the parameters for the latter functions, something like this could be in mind:

Public Function LastRowWithHidden(Optional wsName As String, Optional columnToCheck As Long = 1) As Long Dim ws As Worksheet If wsName = vbNullString Then Set ws = ActiveSheet Else Set ws = Worksheets(wsName) End If Dim letters As String letters = ColLettersGenerator(columnToCheck) LastRowWithHidden = ws.Evaluate("=IFERROR(LOOKUP(2,1/(NOT(ISBLANK(" & letters & "))),ROW(" & letters & " )),0)") End Function Function ColLettersGenerator(col As Long) As String Dim result As Variant result = Split(Cells(1, col).Address(True, False), "$") ColLettersGenerator = result(0) & ":" & result(0) End Function 

Sub lastRow() Dim i As Long i = Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row MsgBox i End Sub sub LastRow() 'Paste & for better understanding of the working use F8 Key to run the code . dim WS as worksheet dim i as long set ws = thisworkbook("SheetName") ws.activate ws.range("a1").select ws.range("a1048576").select activecell.end(xlup).select i= activecell.row msgbox "My Last Row Is " & i End sub 

Last Row in a regular range or a Table (ListObject)

1. Finding the last row requires using different methods if the range is a regular range or table (List Object).
2. Finding the last row in tables requires specifying additional parameters (table name , the column relative position to the first tables column).

I created this universal function for last row, regardless of range type. Just give it any cell reference whatsoever and it will return the last row. No hassle having to knew range characteristics, especially if your ranges are some times a regular range and sometimes a ListObject. Using a regular range method on a table might return wrong results. Sure you can plan ahead of time and use the right method each time, but why bother if you can utilizes a universal function ?

Sub RunMyLastRow() Dim Result As Long Result = MyLastRow(Worksheets(1).Range("A1")) End Sub 

 Function MyLastRow(RefrenceRange As Range) As Long Dim WS As Worksheet Dim TableName As String Dim ColNumber As Long Dim LastRow As Long Dim FirstColumnTable As Long Dim ColNumberTable As Long Set WS = RefrenceRange.Worksheet TableName = GetTableName(RefrenceRange) ColNumber = RefrenceRange.Column ''If the table (ListObject) does not start in column "A" we need to calculate the ''first Column table and how many Columns from its beginning the Column is located. If TableName <> vbNullString Then FirstColumnTable = WS.ListObjects(TableName).ListColumns(1).Range.Column ColNumberTable = ColNumber - FirstColumnTable + 1 End If If TableName = vbNullString Then LastRow = WS.Cells(WS.Rows.Count, ColNumber).End(xlUp).Row Else LastRow = WS.ListObjects(TableName).ListColumns(ColNumberTable).Range.Find( _ What:="*", SearchOrder:=xlByRows, SearchDirection:=xlPrevious).Row End If MyLastRow = LastRow End Function 

 ''Get Table Name by Cell Range Function GetTableName(RefrenceRange As Range) As String If RefrenceRange.ListObject Is Nothing Then GetTableName = vbNullString Else GetTableName = RefrenceRange.ListObject.Name End If End Function 

An alternative using Match worksheet formula, has worked for me in any situation.

 'Returns the last non empty cell within 1 row or 1 column range ' Works with row or column ranges ' Returns 0 if range is empty (no used cells) ' Can include or ignore cells with errors 'Arguments: ' rng = any range with 1 row or 1 column (not necessarily an entire row or column) ' IncludeErrorCells = if false, will ignore cells with errors (N/A, REF, NAME?, etc) 'Notes: ' Works with spill ranges ' Function GetLastUsedCellInRange(ByRef rng As Range, Optional IncludeErrorCells As Boolean = True) As Long If rng.Columns.count > 1 And rng.Rows.count > 1 Then Stop 'rng must be only 1 row or 1 column, not an area Exit Function End If Const Formula = "=IFERROR(MATCH(2, 1/(???? <> """")), 0)" Const FormulaErrors = "=IFERROR(MATCH(2, 1/IFERROR(???? <> """", TRUE)), 0)" GetLastUsedCellInRange = rng.Worksheet.Evaluate(Replace(IIf(IncludeErrorCells, FormulaErrors, Formula), "????", rng.Address)) End Function