The Excel CHISQ.INV Function

Related Functions:
CHISQ.DIST
CHISQ.INV.RT

Function Description

The Excel Chisq.Inv function calculates the inverse of the left-tailed probability of the Chi-Square Distribution.

The function is new in Excel 2010 and so is not available in earlier versions of Excel.

The syntax of the function is:

CHISQ.INV( probability, degrees_freedom )

Where the function arguments are:

probability - The probability of the left-tailed chi-square distribution, for which you want to find the value of x.
degrees_freedom -

The number of degrees of freedom (must be an integer between 1 and 1010).

(If the supplied value is a decimal, this is truncated to an integer).


Chisq.Inv Function Examples

The Excel Chisq.Inv function is used in the spreadsheet below, to calculate the inverse of the left-tailed chi-square distribution for five sets of values.

 Formulas:
  A
1 =CHISQ.INV( 0.5, 1 )
2 =CHISQ.INV( 0.75, 1 )
3 =CHISQ.INV( 0.1, 2 )
4 =CHISQ.INV( 0.8, 2 )
5 =CHISQ.INV( 0.25, 3 )
 Results:
  A
1 0.454936423
2 1.323303697
3 0.210721031
4 3.218875825
5 1.212532903

For further details and examples of the Excel Chisq.Inv function, see the Microsoft Office website.


Chisq.Inv Function Errors

If you get an error from the Excel Chisq.Inv function this is likely to be one of the following:

Common Errors
#NUM! -

Occurs if either:

  • The supplied probability value is < 0 or ≥ 1;
  • The supplied degrees_freedom argument is <1 or >1010.
#VALUE! - Occurs if any of the supplied arguments is non-numeric.