Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Calculating Business Days.

Calculating Business Days

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 22, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


In performing calculations with Excel, it is often helpful to know how many days there are between two dates. Excel makes this easy—you just subtract the earlier date from the latter.

In a business environment, however, you may not want to know just the number of days—you probably want to know the number of business days between two dates. In other words, how many workdays are there between two dates?

Believe it or not, Excel makes it almost as easy to calculate business days as it is to calculate regular days. All you need to do is use the NETWORKDAYS worksheet function. This function is not intrinsic to Excel; it is part of the Analysis ToolPak. (How you enable the Analysis ToolPak is discussed in other ExcelTips.)

Let's suppose for a moment that you had two dates: one in A3 and the other in A4. The date in A3 is your starting date and the date in A4 is the ending date. To calculate the work days between the two dates, you could use the following formula:

=NETWORKDAYS(A3,A4)

This returns a count of all the days between the two dates, not counting weekends. You should note that the function returns the number of full days. Thus, if your starting date was Sept. 4 and your ending date was Sept. 5, the function would return a value of 2. (Provided neither day was a weekend day.)

If you want to account for holidays, the easiest way is to enter your standard holidays in a range of cells, and then define a name for that range. (I always like the terribly obvious name of "Holidays.") You can then alter the NETWORKDAYS formula in this manner:

=NETWORKDAYS(A3,A4,Holidays)

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2155) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Calculating Business Days.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Determining the Length of a String

Macros are great for working with strings, and one of the most commonly used string functions is Len. This tip explains ...

Discover More

Turning Off Track Changes Change Bars

Word includes a feature that allows you to track changes made to a document. One of the ways in which Word marks your ...

Discover More

Removing Borders

Need to get rid of the borders around a cell? The shortcut in this tip can make quick work of this formatting task.

Discover More

Program Successfully in Excel! This guide will provide you with all the information you need to automate any task in Excel and save time and effort. Learn how to extend Excel's functionality with VBA to create solutions not possible with the standard features. Includes latest information for Excel 2024 and Microsoft 365. Check out Mastering Excel VBA Programming today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Specifying Different Weekends with NETWORKDAYS

The NETWORKDAYS worksheet function can be used to easily determine the number of work days (Monday through Friday) within ...

Discover More

The EDATE Function

Want to figure a date a certain number of months in the future or past? The EDATE function may be just what you need for ...

Discover More

Using Excel for Timing

Excel allows you to store times in a worksheet. If you want to use Excel to time certain events, there are a couple of ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 5 - 0?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.