Business Days Calculator

The Business Days Calculator counts the working days between two dates, or finds the date a number of working days after a start date. It skips weekends, lets you choose which days count as the weekend, and can skip holidays you add. A business day is a weekday that is not a public holiday.

How to Use the Business Days Calculator

Choose what you want to do: count business days between two dates, or add business days to a date. Enter the start date, then the end date or the number of business days.

Choose the weekend: Saturday and Sunday, Friday and Saturday, or Sunday only. Optionally add public holidays or other days off, one at a time, with the month, day and year boxes and the Add button.

Select Calculate. Four quick chips sit below the form: November 2026, All of 2026, 10 business days from today, and 30 business days from today. Each one calculates at once.

Skip the start date and the tool replies: “Enter the start date: choose the day and month, and type the year.” An impossible start date gets the reply: “The start date is not valid.

Please check it.” In count mode, leaving the end date blank gets the reply: “Enter the end date as well.” In add mode, leaving the number blank gets the reply: “Enter how many business days to add, for example 10.”

An impossible holiday date gets the reply:

“Choose a valid holiday date: month, day and 4-digit year.”

In count mode the result shows the big line “N business days” and the line “From Friday, 6 November 2026 to Friday, 20 November 2026, counting both dates and skipping your holidays.

This matches Excel’s NETWORKDAYS.” In add mode the result shows the date in the big line, with the line “Counting from Friday, 6 November 2026 (not counted itself), skipping weekends. That is in 13 days.” and, when the result is in the past, “That was N days ago.” instead.

Both modes show the same three stats underneath: calendar days, weekend days and holidays in the period. When you have added no holidays, a note reads “Public holidays are not skipped unless you add them below the weekend choice.”

To count every calendar day instead, use the Days Between Dates calculator. To add calendar days, weeks or months, use the Date Calculator.

How the Calculator Counts

Counting between two dates

Both the start date and the end date are included when they are working days. This matches Excel’s NETWORKDAYS function, so you can check results against a spreadsheet. If you enter the dates in reverse order, the calculator swaps them and shows the same count, with the earlier date first in the line underneath.

Adding business days

The start date itself is not counted. The calculator moves forward one day at a time, counting only working days, until it reaches the number you entered. This matches Excel’s WORKDAY function. For example, 10 business days after Friday, 6 November 2026 is Friday, 20 November 2026.

Worked Examples

A supplier promises delivery within 10 business days of an order placed on Friday, 6 November 2026. Counting from the next working day, Monday 9 November, and skipping the weekends of 14 to 15 November, the 10th business day is Friday, 20 November 2026.

The result also shows 14 calendar days and 4 weekend days. If the supplier also closes on a holiday inside that period, add it and the date moves one working day later: with Monday 9 November added as a holiday, the 10th business day is Monday, 23 November 2026.

Ten business days from today, Saturday 7 November 2026, is Friday, 20 November 2026. Thirty business days from today is Friday, 18 December 2026. From Monday 9 November 2026, 30 business days is Monday, 21 December 2026.

Counting between two dates, the business days from 14 May 1990 to 7 November 2026 are 9,520, out of 13,327 calendar days, with 3,807 weekend days. From 1 January 2026 to 7 November 2026, the business days are 222.

To count the working days in a month, enter the first and last day of the month. November 2026 has 21 weekdays, from Monday 2 November to Monday 30 November, plus Sunday 1 November which is not counted.

Choosing the Weekend

Weekends differ around the world:

Pick the pattern your organisation uses. If your working week is different again, count with the closest option and add the extra days off as holidays.

For example, a four-day week with Friday off as well as Saturday and Sunday is not one of the three options: choose Saturday and Sunday, then add every Friday in the period as a holiday.

Adding Holidays

Public holidays are not skipped automatically, because they differ by country, region and employer. Add each holiday that falls in your period with the month, day and year boxes and the Add button.

Holidays that fall on a weekend are ignored, because those days are already skipped. Remove a holiday with its Remove button. The result shows how many holidays were skipped, and the note under the result reminds you that public holidays are not skipped unless you add them.

The table below lists the 11 US federal holidays for 2026, so you can add them by hand. All 11 fall on weekdays in 2026, which is why the year has 250 working days after federal holidays.

In 2027 the count is 249, because New Year’s Day 2028 falls on a Saturday and is observed on Friday, 31 December 2027, a twelfth day off inside 2027.

Independence Day itself, 4 July, is a Saturday in 2026, so the federal observance moves to Friday, 3 July. The rule is the same every year: a holiday that falls on a Saturday is observed on the Friday before, and one that falls on a Sunday is observed on the Monday after.

The list above is the federal list; your employer, state or bank can observe a different set, so check the list that applies to you.

Business Days in a Year

With a Saturday and Sunday weekend, 2026 has 261 weekdays before any public holidays, and so does 2027. A year runs 52 full weeks plus one or two extra days, so the count is always 260, 261 or 262 weekdays, depending on which weekdays those extra days fall on.

A common year has 52 weeks plus one extra day: 261 weekdays if that day is a weekday, 260 if it is a Saturday or Sunday.

A leap year has two extra days: 262 if both are weekdays, 261 if one is, and 260 if neither is. 2028 is a leap year that starts on a Saturday, so it has 260 weekdays. Subtract your public holidays to get the true number of working days.

On average, a month has 21.75 working days, and most months fall between 20 and 23 depending on how the weekends land. In 2026 the fewest are in February, with 20, and the most in July and December, with 23 each.

After the 11 US federal holidays, 2026 has 250 working days, which is 2,000 hours at 8 hours a day. Payroll systems often use 2,080 hours as a default, which is 260 days at 8 hours, so the two figures differ by 80 hours.

Subtracting Business Days

The tool has no subtract mode. The number field strips out a minus sign, so you cannot type a negative number of business days to add, even though the calculation behind the tool handles negative numbers.

To find a date a number of business days earlier, use the count mode backwards: pick a candidate date, count the business days between the two dates, and move the candidate back until the count matches.

For example, 10 business days before Friday, 20 November 2026 is Friday, 6 November 2026, the reverse of the supplier example above. In a spreadsheet, the same answer comes from =WORKDAY(“20 November 2026”, -10), which counts backwards and skips weekends and holidays.

Business Days in Deadlines

Many deadlines are written in business days: shipping times, bank transfers, notice periods, payment terms and official response times. Three points help avoid mistakes: Check whether the deadline counts from the day after an event, as WORKDAY does, or includes the first day.

Check which holidays the organisation observes; national, regional and company holidays can all apply. For legal or contractual deadlines, the rule written in the contract or law always takes priority over a calculator.

Watch the edge cases too. A deadline of “10 business days” starting on a Friday lands two Fridays later, not the Friday after next week, because the start date is not counted.

A deadline that falls on a public holiday moves to the next working day in most rules, but only if the rule says so. And a period that starts on a weekend still counts from the next working day in add mode, because the start date itself is never counted.

Business Days and Excel

If you also work in spreadsheets, these functions give the same answers as this calculator: NETWORKDAYS(start, end, holidays) counts business days between two dates, including both. WORKDAY(start, days, holidays) finds the date a number of business days after the start.

NETWORKDAYS.INTL and WORKDAY.INTL let you choose a different weekend. In NETWORKDAYS.INTL, the weekend code 7 means Friday and Saturday, and the code 1 means Saturday and Sunday. Google Sheets handles these calculations identically to Excel, so the same formulas work in both.

Two Excel examples, checked against this calculator: =NETWORKDAYS(DATE(2026,6,1), DATE(2026,6,30)) returns 22, the weekdays in June 2026. =WORKDAY(DATE(2026,6,1), 5) returns Monday, 8 June 2026, five working days after Monday, 1 June 2026, with the weekend of 6 to 7 June skipped.

Business Days, Working Days and Banking Days

These terms usually mean the same thing: days when businesses are normally open, excluding weekends and public holidays. Banks and courts sometimes have their own definitions, such as excluding bank holidays that other businesses observe. When a deadline matters, use the definition and holiday list of the organisation that set it.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve defines a business day as any day except Saturdays, Sundays and listed legal holidays, and it moves a Sunday holiday to the Monday after.

The 250 working days in 2026 is the figure banks and courts use for settlement periods, which is why “3 to 5 business days” can stretch across a long weekend.

How This Calculator Compares

Three working-days calculators rank for the same query, and each one handles holidays or subtraction a little differently. The table below sets them out side by side.

Where this calculator still loses: it has no built-in holiday calendar and no subtract mode. OnlyCalculators lets you subtract with a negative number, and Calxy skips US federal holidays on its own.

What this page gives that the three rivals do not is the US federal holidays table, the business-days-by-month table and the worked subtract method, all in the guide.

Keep Exploring

Birthday Calculator: count the days to your next birthday and see the weekday of your next ten birthdays.

Countdown Calculator: set a target date and watch the days, hours, minutes and seconds left.

Date Calculator: work out a date a number of years, months, weeks or days from another date.

Days Between Dates: count the calendar days between two dates, with the exact years, months and days.

Sources

Microsoft Support: NETWORKDAYS function (the NETWORKDAYS function, counting business days between two dates)

Microsoft Support: WORKDAY function (the WORKDAY function, adding business days to a start date)

US Office of Personnel Management: Federal holidays (the 11 federal holidays and the observed-holiday rule, under 5 U.S.C. 6103)

Frequently Asked Questions