The Excel F.INV Function

Related Functions:
F.DIST
F.INV.RT

Function Description

The Excel F.INV function calculates the inverse of the Cumulative F Distribution for a supplied probability.

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

The syntax of the F.Inv function is:

F.INV( probability, deg_freedom1, deg_freedom2 )

Where the function arguments are:

probability - The probability (between 0 and 1) at which to evaluate the inverse Cumulative F Distribution.
deg_freedom1 - An integer specifying the numerator degrees of freedom.
deg_freedom2 - An integer specifying the denominator degrees of freedom.

If either deg_freedom1 or deg_freedom2 are decimal numbers, these are truncated to integers by Excel.

Note that the Excel F.Inv function is the inverse of the Cumulative form of the Excel F.Dist function.

I.e. if
F.DIST( x, deg_freedom1, deg_freedom2, True ) = probability
then
F.INV( probability, deg_freedom1, deg_freedom2 ) = x

F.Inv Function Example

Plot of the Inverse Cumulative F Distribution with numerator degrees of freedom = 2 and denominator degrees of freedom = 5
Inverse Cumulative F Dist., deg_freedom1 = 2 & deg_freedom2 = 5

The above chart on the right shows the inverse of the Cumulative F Distribution with the numerator degrees of freedom equal to 2 and the denominator degrees of freedom equal to 5.

If you want to calculate the value of this function for a probability equal to 0.9, this can be done using the Excel F.Inv function, as follows:

=F.INV( 0.9, 2, 5 )

This gives the result 3.779716079.


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


F.Inv Function Errors

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

Common Errors
#NUM! -

Occurs if either:

  • The supplied probability is < 0 or ≥ 1
or
  • The supplied deg_freedom1 or deg_freedom2 is < 1.
#VALUE! - Occurs if any of the supplied arguments is non-numeric.