Boolean

Booleans represent logical values that can only be TRUE or FALSE. They are a native data type in Google Sheets and are fundamental to conditional logic.

Coercion

Google Sheets uses a weakly typed system, and Booleans participate in coercion in both directions.

Booleans as numbers

In most arithmetic contexts, TRUE coerces to 1 and FALSE coerces to 0:

TRUE + 1              → 2
FALSE * 5             → 0
SUM(TRUE, TRUE, FALSE) → 2

Some functions do not accept Booleans as numeric arguments. MMULT is a known example; others may exist.

Non-Booleans as Booleans

In logical contexts such as the condition argument of IF, other types coerce as follows:

Value	Result
0	FALSE
Any non-zero number	TRUE
"" (empty string)	FALSE
Non-empty string	#VALUE!
Blank cell	FALSE
Error	Propagates

Non-empty strings do not coerce to TRUE in logical contexts — they produce #VALUE!.

Checkboxes

By default, checkboxes correspond directly to Boolean values: checked is TRUE, unchecked is FALSE. Custom checkbox values can override this, storing arbitrary values for each state instead.

See Also

• Type coercion — full coercion rules across all types.
• Data type — overview of the type system.
• IF, AND, OR, NOT — common logical functions.