diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index e910ca5..55661bb 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
 - Support multi-point searches ([#72](https://github.com/nasa/python_cmr/issues/72))
 - Support `processing_level_id` in `CollectionQuery` ([#76](https://github.com/nasa/python_cmr/issues/76))
 - Support `platform` in `CollectionQuery` ([#77](https://github.com/nasa/python_cmr/issues/77))
+- Support searching by instance format for `VariableQuery` ([#59]https://github.com/nasa/python_cmr/issues/59)
 
 ### Fixed
 - Setup vcrpy for new `revision_date` unit tests ([#70](https://github.com/nasa/python_cmr/issues/70))
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index b014f2f..0b9bd03 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -225,6 +225,9 @@ api.name('/AMR_Side_1/acc_lat')
 
 # Search via concept_id
 api.concept_id('V2112019824-POCLOUD')
+
+# Search via instance format
+query.instance_format(["zarr", "kerchunk"])
 ```
 
 As an alternative to chaining methods together to set the parameters of your query, a method exists to allow you to pass
diff --git a/cmr/queries.py b/cmr/queries.py
index 4c1487f..df5cd6c 100644
--- a/cmr/queries.py
+++ b/cmr/queries.py
@@ -1210,6 +1210,21 @@ def __init__(self, mode: str = CMR_OPS):
             "dif", "dif10", "opendata", "umm_json", "umm_json_v[0-9]_[0-9]"
         ])
 
+    def instance_format(self, format: Union[str, Sequence[str]]) -> Self:
+        """
+        Filter by instance format(s), matching any one of the specified formats.
+        Does nothing if `format` is an empty string or an empty sequence.
+
+        :param format: format(s) for variable instance (a single string, or sequence of
+            strings)
+        :returns: self
+        """
+
+        if format:
+            # Assume we have non-empty string or sequence of strings (list, tuple, etc.)
+            self.params['instance_format'] = [format] if isinstance(format, str) else format
+        
+        return self
     @override
     def _valid_state(self) -> bool:
         return True
diff --git a/tests/test_variable.py b/tests/test_variable.py
index ca6963a..cf9fc15 100644
--- a/tests/test_variable.py
+++ b/tests/test_variable.py
@@ -85,3 +85,17 @@ def bearer_test_token(self):
 
         self.assertIn("Authorization", query.headers)
         self.assertEqual(query.headers["Authorization"], "Bearer 123TOKEN")
+
+    def test_instance_format(self):
+        query = VariableQuery()
+        query.instance_format("zarr")
+
+        self.assertIn("instance_format", query.params)
+        self.assertEqual(query.params["instance_format"], ["zarr"])
+
+    def test_instance_formats(self):
+        query = VariableQuery()
+        query.instance_format(["zarr", "kerchunk"])
+
+        self.assertIn("instance_format", query.params)
+        self.assertEqual(query.params["instance_format"], ["zarr", "kerchunk"])