Excel and Google Sheets how-to
Count working days between two dates
Ana is off from 1 Oct to 14 Oct. How many working days is that? NETWORKDAYS counts Monday to Friday and leaves out the weekends.
| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Name | From | To | Work days |
| 2 | Ana | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-14 | 10 |
| 3 | Raj | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-09 | 5 |
| 4 | Kim | 2026-10-09 | 2026-10-12 | 2 |
| 5 | Lee | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-30 | 21 |
| 6 | Sam | 2026-12-21 | 2027-01-01 | 10 |
Sample data. First day in B, last day in C, the formula in D2 is copied down.
The formula
Click the first Work days cell (D2) and type:
=NETWORKDAYS(B2,C2)D2 shows 10. 1 Oct 2026 is a Thursday and 14 Oct a Wednesday: 14 days, less 2 weekends, is 10. Copy it down and Raj (Monday to Friday) shows 5, Kim (a Friday to a Monday) 2, Lee 21 and Sam 10.
- B2 is the first day, and it counts.
- C2 is the last day, and it counts too.
- Every Saturday and Sunday in between is left out.
Skip your holidays
List your holiday dates in a column, here 12 Oct 2026, 25 Dec 2026 and 1 Jan 2027 in F2:F4, and add the range as a third part:
=NETWORKDAYS(B2,C2,$F$2:$F$4)Ana drops to 9, because 12 Oct is in the list, and Sam drops to 8 (25 Dec and 1 Jan). The dollar signs keep the list fixed when you copy the formula down. A holiday that falls on a Saturday or Sunday is not taken off twice.
All days, not just working days
Subtract the dates for the days between them:
=C2-B2Ana gives 13. Add 1 to count both the first and the last day: =C2-B2+1 gives 14. =DAYS(C2,B2) also gives 13; note the end date comes first. If the answer shows as a date, change the cell format to Number.
A different weekend
NETWORKDAYS.INTL takes a weekend code as its third part. For a Friday and Saturday weekend:
=NETWORKDAYS.INTL(B2,C2,7)Ana still has 10 working days, but Sam has 9: his 12 days hold two Fridays (25 Dec and 1 Jan) and one Saturday, three days off instead of two. For a six day week with only Sunday off, use 11:
=NETWORKDAYS.INTL(B2,C2,11)Ana now has 12. Code 1 is Saturday and Sunday (the default), 7 is Friday and Saturday, 11 is Sunday only and 17 is Saturday only. You can also type 7 digits from Monday to Sunday, where 1 is a day off: "0000011" is the usual Saturday and Sunday weekend. Holidays go in as a fourth part.
A deadline in working days
WORKDAY goes the other way: it gives the date a number of working days after a start date.
=WORKDAY(B2,10)Ten working days after 1 Oct 2026 is 15 Oct 2026. The start date itself is not counted. With the holiday list it moves to 16 Oct, because 12 Oct is skipped:
=WORKDAY(B2,10,$F$2:$F$4)If the result shows a number such as 46310, give the cell a date format.
Working days left
Use TODAY() as the first date to count the working days from today to a deadline:
=NETWORKDAYS(TODAY(),C2)Today counts if it is a weekday, and the number goes down by itself each working day.
A negative number or #VALUE!
A negative answer means the two dates are the wrong way round: =NETWORKDAYS(C2,B2) gives -10. Put the earlier date first. #VALUE! means one of the cells is not a real date, for example text like "next week" or a date pasted as text; =ISNUMBER(B2) shows FALSE for those. NETWORKDAYS, NETWORKDAYS.INTL, WORKDAY and DAYS work in every current version of Excel and in Google Sheets.
Templates with the math already done
Rather skip the formulas? These templates come with every formula built and checked, plus a filled-in sample.
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