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How to Calculate Working Days Between Dates in Excel

Count workdays between Excel dates with NETWORKDAYS, exclude supplied holidays, and adapt the formula for custom weekends with NETWORKDAYS.INTL.
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Use Excel’s NETWORKDAYS function to count Monday–Friday working days between two dates, or NETWORKDAYS.INTL when your weekend differs. Both can exclude holidays you provide, and both count eligible start and end dates.

Count working days with a Saturday–Sunday weekend

Enter the start and end dates in separate cells, then use NETWORKDAYS. For example, if the dates are in A2 and B2:

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=NETWORKDAYS(A2,B2)

The function returns whole working days, excluding Saturday and Sunday by default. It counts both endpoints when they fall on working days, so this is an inclusive count rather than simply the date difference minus weekends. Microsoft’s documentation illustrates the result as 110 working days from October 1, 2012 through March 1, 2013; excluding November 22, 2012 as a holiday makes the count 109. Microsoft’s NETWORKDAYS documentation

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Exclude holidays from the count

Put each applicable holiday in its own cell as an actual Excel date, then supply that range as the third argument. For holidays in H2:H10:

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=NETWORKDAYS(A2,B2,H2:H10)

Excel excludes a listed date only when it falls within the interval and would otherwise count as a workday. The function does not choose a holiday calendar: maintain a list appropriate to the relevant country, organization, or employee schedule, including the years covered by your calculation. Microsoft’s NETWORKDAYS documentation

Use a custom weekend schedule

For workweeks that do not use Saturday and Sunday as the weekend, use NETWORKDAYS.INTL:

=NETWORKDAYS.INTL(start_date,end_date,weekend,[holidays])

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For dates in A2 and B2, this example treats Sunday and Monday as nonworking days and excludes dates in H2:H10:

=NETWORKDAYS.INTL(A2,B2,2,H2:H10)

The third argument specifies the weekend; the optional fourth argument specifies holidays. You can use a numeric weekend code or a seven-character string ordered Monday through Sunday, where 1 marks a nonworking day and 0 a working day. For example, 0000011 marks Saturday and Sunday as nonworking. The string must contain seven characters using only 0 and 1, and it cannot mark all seven days as nonworking. Microsoft’s NETWORKDAYS.INTL documentation

Enter dates Excel can recognize

  1. Place the start date and end date in separate cells.

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  2. Enter actual Excel date values, not ambiguous text. Microsoft recommends creating dates with DATE(year,month,day) or using formula results if needed. Microsoft’s NETWORKDAYS documentation

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  3. Enter each holiday date in its own cell, then pass the holiday range as the relevant function argument.

  4. Choose NETWORKDAYS for a Saturday–Sunday weekend, or NETWORKDAYS.INTL for a custom weekend pattern.

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Microsoft’s date-difference guide also uses NETWORKDAYS.INTL for this kind of calculation and shows the holiday range in the fourth argument. Microsoft’s date-difference guide

Choose the function that matches the result you need

Need Function What it returns
Count workdays with Saturday and Sunday off NETWORKDAYS A count; optional holiday range is the third argument
Count workdays with a custom weekend NETWORKDAYS.INTL A count; weekend pattern is the third argument and optional holiday range is fourth
Move forward or backward by a number of workdays WORKDAY or WORKDAY.INTL A resulting date, not a count between two dates

Use WORKDAY when the schedule uses the standard weekend, or WORKDAY.INTL when it has a custom weekend; both support holidays. WORKDAY documentation and WORKDAY.INTL documentation

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Handle reversed dates and common errors

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