REGEXTEST

Category: MS Excel compatibility function · Native since: Microsoft 365

Tests whether text matches a regular expression.

Syntax

=REGEXTEST(text, pattern, [case_sensitivity])

Arguments

Argument	Required	Description
text	Required	text to test
pattern	Required	regex pattern (ECMAScript)
case_sensitivity	Optional	0 case-sensitive (default), 1 case-insensitive

Returns

Returns a logical TRUE/FALSE (scalar) indicating whether a match exists. Returns #VALUE! for an invalid pattern.

Examples

Formula	Result	Description
=REGEXTEST("abc123","\d+")	TRUE	contains digits
=REGEXTEST("ABC","[a-z]+",1)	TRUE	case-insensitive
=REGEXTEST("abc","^\d")	FALSE	no match

Notes

• The regex flavor is std::wregex ECMAScript (may differ from native 365's PCRE2 in places).
• text·pattern accept arrays and are computed element-wise, spilling an array of the same shape — scalars are broadcast, a column vector × a row vector expands to their outer product, size-mismatched elements yield #N/A, and an error element returns that error.
• Related functions: REGEXEXTRACT, REGEXREPLACE
• Supported: Excel 2010+. Registered as REGEXTEST (drop-in) on hosts without the native function, and as EG.REGEXTEST on modern Excel that has it.