The Most Common VBA Runtime Errors – Causes & Solutions

A quick reference for errors you’ll see often—and how to fix them.

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9: Subscript out of range

• Wrong sheet/workbook/index.

Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Data") ' not ActiveWorkbook

• Using Cells(row, "col") with invalid indexes.

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91: Object variable not set

• You used a variable like ws before Set ws = ... succeeded.
• Validate existence:

If Evaluate("ISREF('Data'!A1)") Then Set ws = Worksheets("Data")

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13: Type mismatch

• Assigning text to numeric or using Variant unpredictably.
• Coerce types or validate with IsNumeric, CLng, CDbl.

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1004: Application-defined or object-defined error

• Invalid range operations, protected sheets, filtered ranges.
• Use SpecialCells(xlCellTypeVisible) for filtered ranges.