Last updated: October 2026. Written by Josh Hutcheson. See our review methodology.
The best Excel VBA course for most people is Leila Gharani’s Unlock Excel VBA and Excel Macros on Udemy, and the best free route is the University of Colorado Boulder’s Excel/VBA course on Coursera. Below are five courses worth your time, chosen for different goals, plus an honest section on when VBA is the wrong tool in 2026. We loaded every course page in a browser on 17 October 2026 and recorded its rating, size and last update.
Quick verdict
Take Unlock Excel VBA and Excel Macros (4.7★, 48,712 ratings, updated February 2026) if you want one clear paid course. Start Excel/VBA for Creative Problem Solving free on Coursera (4.8★, 4,315 reviews) if you want a university-built foundation. Add Kyle Pew’s five-project course when you want practice building real automations.
Macros vs VBA, briefly: a macro is a recorded set of Excel actions you can replay. VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) is the language those macros are saved in. Recording gets you started; learning VBA lets you write and fix macros yourself, which is where loops, conditions, user input and error handling come in. Every course below teaches both.
1. Best overall (paid): Unlock Excel VBA and Excel Macros (Udemy / Leila Gharani)
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Leila Gharani is a Microsoft MVP and one of the best-known Excel teachers online, and this is her VBA course. On 17 October 2026 it had 4.7★ from 48,712 ratings and 239,381 students, with 22.5 hours of video across 172 lectures. It was last updated in February 2026. The course starts from the macro recorder, moves into writing procedures, variables, loops and events, and explains why code is written a particular way, which is the part most courses skip and the reason learners stall later.
It is long, so treat it as a course you work through in sections alongside your own files rather than one you binge. Buyers on Reddit’s r/excel regularly name Gharani among the clearest Excel teachers, though one 2026 thread noted that some of her free YouTube videos predate current Excel features; the paid course is the more recently updated material.
Best for: business users who want the clearest route from zero to automating their own work. Worth knowing: the course page says a Windows PC is required, because VBA is not fully supported in Excel for Mac. Udemy list prices are high and sales are frequent, so check the price on the day.
2. Best free / highest-rated: Excel/VBA for Creative Problem Solving (Coursera / CU Boulder)
Charlie Nuttelman’s course from the University of Colorado Boulder had 4.8★ from 4,315 reviews and 172,324 learners enrolled when we checked. Coursera lists it at a beginner level, with no programming or advanced math assumed, across six modules that add up to about 19 hours: macro recording, procedures and debugging; two modules of VBA fundamentals; programming structures such as loops and conditions; managing data with VBA; and R1C1 references. Each module ends with a mastery assignment you must pass, built around a practical problem rather than a formatting trick.
It is Part 1 of a three-part specialization, so there is a clear next step if you finish it. You can start it free; a graded certificate requires paying for the course or a Coursera subscription. Because the exercises are auto-graded, it is the best pick here for people who learn by being told when their code is wrong.
Best for: anyone who wants a real programming foundation, and anyone on a zero budget. Worth knowing: the problems are numeric and analytical; if you only want to automate reports, the Udemy picks get you there faster.
3. Best project-based: Master Excel Macros and VBA (Udemy / Kyle Pew)
Kyle Pew’s course is built around five projects, each adding a new idea, and ends with a weekly report that pulls several tasks together. It had 4.6★ from 34,036 ratings and 109,081 students on 17 October 2026, with about 5 hours of video across 64 lectures. It was last updated in January 2025. Exercise files come with every project, so you write code throughout rather than watching.
Best for: people who learn by building, and anyone who finished a theory course and wants practice. Worth knowing: it is short; pair it with Gharani’s course for explanation and use this one for repetition.
4. Best all-in-one bootcamp: Learn VBA Programming (Zero To Mastery)
Zero To Mastery’s VBA bootcamp, taught by Travis Cuzick, runs 11 hours across 75 lessons in 11 sections. It covers macros, variables and user input, loops and arrays, userforms, working with sheets and pivot tables, and finishes with a larger data-management application. It is the most complete single course here for people who want to treat VBA as real programming.
On 17 October 2026 ZTM sold the course on its own for $149, or as part of a membership from $25 a month ($299 a year). If you want something shorter first, ZTM’s Learn Excel Automation: Macros & VBA is a 2.5-hour introduction by the same instructor.
Best for: learners who want one structured, programming-first course. Worth knowing: the membership only pays off if you will use other ZTM courses; see our Zero To Mastery review for what it includes.
5. Best for developers: Excel Application Development with VBA (Pluralsight)
Once you are building tools other people rely on, this Pluralsight course by Terry Bradbury covers the professional layer: custom ribbons, advanced userforms, Windows API calls and an application framework with error handling and logging. It was last updated on 25 June 2024 and had a 3.9 author rating from 412 ratings when we checked, so treat it as specialist material rather than a first course.
Best for: experienced users shipping Excel applications to a team. Worth knowing: it assumes solid VBA and is included in a Pluralsight subscription.
Excel VBA courses compared
| Course | Platform | Best for | Size | Rating (17 Oct 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unlock Excel VBA and Excel Macros | Udemy (Leila Gharani) | Clearest paid course | 22.5 hours | 4.7 (48,712 ratings) |
| Excel/VBA for Creative Problem Solving, Pt 1 | Coursera (CU Boulder) | Free start, programming foundation | 6 modules, ~19 hours | 4.8 (4,315 reviews) |
| Master Excel Macros and VBA | Udemy (Kyle Pew) | Project practice | ~5 hours | 4.6 (34,036 ratings) |
| Learn VBA Programming | Zero To Mastery | All-in-one bootcamp | 11 hours, 75 lessons | Not published |
| Excel Application Development with VBA | Pluralsight | Developers | Advanced | 3.9 (412 ratings) |
Udemy reports ratings, Coursera reports reviews, and Pluralsight shows an author rating, so the counts are not directly comparable.
How we picked
We weighed four things. First, teaching clarity, because VBA is where unclear instructors lose people fastest. Second, whether the course makes you write code, not just watch it. Third, ratings at scale, read from each live course page. Fourth, whether each pick serves a different need, so the list is not five versions of the same course.
We also checked currency. One course we considered, Excel VBA Bootcamp: VBA Programming with Practical Workouts on Udemy, is short (4.5 hours) and was updated in September 2024, but its 4.0★ rating from 5,956 ratings is the weakest of the well-known options, so it did not make the list. You can see it on Udemy if a short workout format suits you.
What a good Excel VBA course should teach
A course worth paying for should take you through the full path from recording to writing code. Check the syllabus for:
The VBA editor and the macro recorder. How to record, read what the recorder wrote, and clean it up.
The object model. Workbooks, worksheets, ranges and cells, and how to refer to them without hard-coding addresses that break when someone inserts a row.
Variables, loops and conditions. For Each loops over ranges, If and Select Case logic, and arrays for speed.
Error handling and debugging. Breakpoints, the Immediate window and On Error handling, which separate a macro that works once from one a team can rely on.
User input and events. Input boxes, userforms and event-driven code that runs when a sheet changes.
Working with other files and apps. Looping through a folder of workbooks, and sending email or building documents through Outlook and Word.
If a course stops at the recorder, it is an introduction. All five picks above go past it, and the CU Boulder and ZTM courses go furthest into programming fundamentals.
Excel VBA alternatives: Power Query, Office Scripts and Python
Before you invest weeks in VBA, check that it is the right tool. In a 2026 r/FPandA thread asking for the best VBA resource, the most-upvoted replies said most finance automation is now better done with Power Query, Power BI or Power Automate. That is partly right. Here is how the options split:
| Tool | What it is good at | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| VBA | Automating anything in desktop Excel, userforms, controlling Outlook and Word, legacy workbooks | Excel for Windows; partly Excel for Mac |
| Power Query | Repeatable cleaning and combining of data that arrives in the same shape every week | Excel and Power BI |
| Office Scripts | Recorded or written automation in TypeScript, runnable from a button or a Power Automate flow | Excel on the web (Microsoft 365 business accounts) |
| Python in Excel | Analysis, statistics and charts with Python inside a cell (=PY) | Excel for Windows, Mac and web, with a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription |
The practical rule: if the job is “clean the same file every Monday,” learn Power Query first. If the job involves buttons, forms, other Office apps or a workbook someone built in 2012, you need VBA. Microsoft’s documentation says Office Scripts are aimed at Excel on the web and can be scheduled through Power Automate, which makes them the option to watch for cloud-first teams. Python in Excel is for analysis rather than automating the Excel interface. Many analysts end up using two of these, which is why our best Excel courses guide covers Power Query too.
Is VBA worth learning in 2026?
Yes, with a clear purpose. VBA is no longer where new Microsoft automation features arrive, but it is still everywhere in finance, accounting, insurance and operations, where workbooks built over many years run month-end processes. Being the person who can read, fix and extend those macros is a real advantage, and Excel VBA jobs, including remote ones, are a common search on Bing and Google.
Where VBA is a weaker bet is as a career skill on its own. Recruiters rarely hire for VBA alone; it shows up as one line in a job ad for an analyst, accountant or operations role. Combine it with strong Excel, Power Query and SQL and it becomes a differentiator. Learn only VBA and you are competing for a shrinking set of maintenance roles.
The other 2026 question is AI. Copilot and general chatbots can draft VBA, and several Reddit replies now suggest using them instead of a course. They help, but they also produce code that runs once and fails on edge cases, as another commenter pointed out. You still need to read VBA to check and fix what an assistant writes, which is what these courses teach.
Is there an Excel VBA certification?
No vendor offers a VBA-only certification. Microsoft’s closest credential is the Microsoft Office Specialist: Excel Expert (Microsoft 365 Apps), exam MO-211. Its skills outline includes creating advanced formulas and macros. On 17 October 2026 Microsoft listed it at $100 USD (prices vary by country), with a 50-minute exam and a 60-month renewal frequency.
Course certificates are a different thing. A Udemy, Coursera or ZTM certificate shows you finished a course; it is not an industry credential. Experienced members of r/vba are blunt about this: a GitHub repository or portfolio of automations you built, with short write-ups explaining each one, convinces an employer far more than a completion certificate.
A four-week plan to learn Excel VBA
Most people who give up on VBA do so because they watch hours of video without writing code against their own files. A simple plan that works with any course above:
Week 1: record, then read. Record three tasks you do every week. Open the editor, read what the recorder wrote, and delete the lines you do not need. Learn to step through code with F8 and to set a breakpoint.
Week 2: variables and loops. Replace hard-coded cell addresses with variables, then loop through every row of a table or every sheet in a workbook. This is the week most courses spend on fundamentals, and it is where VBA starts to save real time.
Week 3: decisions and errors. Add If and Select Case logic, then error handling, so the macro tells the user what went wrong instead of stopping with a debug box. Test it on a file with missing data on purpose.
Week 4: a finished tool. Build one automation end to end: a button that cleans this week’s export, builds the summary and saves a dated copy. Write a short note on how it works and keep it in a folder or GitHub repository. That finished tool is what you show an employer, and it is the step most learners never reach.
Ten hours a week is enough for this pace. If you have less time, stretch it to eight weeks rather than skipping the week-four project.
Free ways to learn Excel VBA
Coursera’s free start. You can start the CU Boulder course without paying and upgrade if you want the certificate.
Microsoft’s VBA reference. Microsoft’s Getting started with VBA in Office and the object model reference are free and current. They are reference material rather than a course, but you will use them for as long as you write VBA.
YouTube. WiseOwl Tutorials is the series r/vba members recommend most often for structured free lessons, and Excel4Freelancers builds complete applications on screen, which is useful once you know the basics.
Your own work. Pick a task you repeat every week, record it, then rewrite the recording by hand. That one exercise teaches more about the object model than an hour of video.
How to choose
Want one clear paid course: Leila Gharani on Udemy.
Want to start free, or want a programming foundation: CU Boulder on Coursera.
Learn by building: Kyle Pew’s five-project course.
Want one long, structured bootcamp: Zero To Mastery’s VBA course.
Already writing VBA and building tools for others: Pluralsight’s application development course.
Mostly cleaning the same data every week: skip VBA for now and learn Power Query.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Excel VBA course?
For most people, Leila Gharani’s Unlock Excel VBA and Excel Macros on Udemy: 4.7 stars from 48,712 ratings, 22.5 hours, updated February 2026. If you would rather start free, the University of Colorado Boulder’s Excel/VBA for Creative Problem Solving, Part 1 on Coursera had 4.8 stars from 4,315 reviews on 17 October 2026.
What is the difference between Excel macros and VBA?
A macro is a set of Excel actions you can replay. VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) is the programming language macros are stored in. The macro recorder writes VBA for you, which is a good way to start, but you need to read and edit VBA yourself to add loops, conditions, error handling and user input.
Can I learn Excel VBA for free?
Yes. Coursera lets you start CU Boulder’s Excel/VBA course free and charges only if you want the graded certificate. Microsoft publishes a free VBA language reference for Office, and YouTube channels such as WiseOwl Tutorials and Excel4Freelancers cover VBA in depth. A course adds structure and exercises, which is what most self-taught learners lack.
Is there an Excel VBA certification?
No vendor runs a VBA-only certification. The nearest official credential is Microsoft’s MOS Excel Expert (exam MO-211), which includes creating macros among its advanced skills; it costs $100 USD in the US and renews every 60 months. Course certificates from Udemy, Coursera or ZTM are completion certificates, not industry credentials.
Is VBA still worth learning in 2026?
Yes, if your work runs on desktop Excel. Finance, accounting and operations teams still depend on VBA workbooks, and inheriting one is common. For new automation, check the alternatives first: Power Query for repeated data cleaning, Office Scripts for Excel on the web, and Python in Excel for analysis.
Does VBA work on a Mac?
Partly. Excel for Mac runs VBA, but some features differ from Windows and several courses state they are taught on Windows. Leila Gharani’s course page says a Windows PC is required. VBA does not run in Excel on the web; Office Scripts is Microsoft’s automation option there.
How long does it take to learn Excel VBA?
You can record and edit simple macros in a weekend. Writing reliable procedures with loops, variables and error handling usually takes a few weeks of regular practice. The courses here run from about 5 hours (Kyle Pew) to 22.5 hours (Leila Gharani), and CU Boulder’s Part 1 adds up to about 19 hours on Coursera.
Do I need to know programming to learn VBA?
No. VBA is a common first programming language, and every course here starts from zero code. If you can write nested Excel formulas, you already think in steps and conditions, which transfers well.
What is the best VBA course for finance?
Leila Gharani’s course is the clearest general start for finance and accounting users. If you mainly need to automate reports, pair it with Kyle Pew’s project course, which ends by building a weekly report. Analysts who only need repeatable data cleaning should learn Power Query first; see our best Excel courses guide.
Related guides
VBA is one part of Excel. See our guides to the best Excel courses, the best Udemy Excel courses, the best Power BI courses for dashboards, Microsoft Access courses for database work, and every Zero To Mastery course ranked.