In Excel: use =NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays]) — it counts the whole working days (Monday to Friday) between two dates, excluding weekends and any holidays you list.
Syntax
Arguments
| Argument | Description | |
|---|---|---|
start_date | required | The first date of the period, counted as day one. |
end_date | required | The last date of the period; it is included in the count. |
holidays | optional | A range of dates to exclude as well, such as public holidays. |
Related functions
86 calendar days
Need it as an auditable file?
Ships inside the linked template — formula-driven, unlocked, audit-ready.
What this does
NETWORKDAYS counts whole working days between two dates. It includes both the start and end date, automatically skips every Saturday and Sunday, and skips any dates you pass in the optional holidays range as well. It is the standard way to work out delivery times, project durations or how many billable days fall in a period. If your week does not run Monday to Friday — say a Sunday-to-Thursday week — use NETWORKDAYS.INTL, which adds a weekend-pattern argument so you can define which days count as the weekend. The same idea underpins a lot of everyday Excel work, so the few minutes spent getting it right here pay back across every sheet you build afterwards. Treat it as a pattern, not a one-off, and it stops being something you look up and starts being something you reach for. The difference between a quick fix and a sheet you can trust is the extra minute you spend validating “count business days in excel”. Start on a copy or a tiny sample, keep the affected cells visible, and compare the result with the tool above before you touch the real workbook. When a formula is involved, keep the inputs labelled beside it, reference cells instead of typing values, and apply number formatting only after the result checks out. The point is a calculation you can defend to a CFO or an auditor, but the practical win is that someone else can open the file and understand what happened without asking you.
A worked example
A task starts on 01/06/2026 (a Monday) in A2 and is due 12/06/2026 (a Friday) in B2. =NETWORKDAYS(A2, B2) returns 10 — the two full weeks of weekdays, with the weekend of the 6th and 7th excluded. If 05/06/2026 is a public holiday listed in D2, then =NETWORKDAYS(A2, B2, D2) returns 9, dropping that one day too. NETWORKDAYS is the right tool for SLAs, project timelines and billing, where only Monday-to-Friday working days count and weekends and holidays must drop out automatically. If there is any chance you will reuse this, drop it into a small template tab right now: a labelled input area on the left and the formula beside it, checked once against the tool above. Next time the same question comes up, the answer is a single paste away instead of a rebuild from memory.
In Google Sheets
Everything above works in Google Sheets too. Excel and Sheets share the formula syntax used here; only the surrounding menus are arranged differently. That portability is deliberate — learn it once and it follows you between the two tools and across Windows and Mac. The aim was to get you unstuck fast and leave you a little more capable than a copy-paste would. The answer is at the top, the tool proves it, and the detail above shows why it holds — so the next time a colleague asks, you can answer without reaching for search. Here is the takeaway for “count business days in excel”: copy the answer if you are busy, but if you have a spare few minutes, rebuild the example in Excel yourself with the tool above open beside it. That single pass — type it, run it, watch the result move when you change an input — is what turns a formula you found into a technique you trust. Keep your inputs labelled and referenced, never hard-coded, and the same sheet stays correct and auditable as it grows. Done that way, you will not need to look this up again, and you will be the person others ask.
Common mistakes
- Expecting the result to exclude the start date —
NETWORKDAYScounts both endpoints, so a Monday-to-Friday span is 5, not 4. - Leaving holidays out and over-counting across public holidays; pass a holiday range as the third argument to drop them.
- Using
NETWORKDAYSfor a non-Monday-to-Friday week — it always treats Saturday and Sunday as the weekend, so use NETWORKDAYS.INTL for other patterns.
Frequently asked questions
Does NETWORKDAYS include the start and end dates?
Yes, both are counted if they fall on a weekday. A period from Monday to Friday returns 5 because every day in the inclusive range is a working day.
How do I exclude public holidays?
List the holiday dates in a column and pass that range as the third argument: =NETWORKDAYS(A2, B2, D2:D10). Any of those dates that fall on a weekday are removed from the count.
How do I count working days with a different weekend?
Use NETWORKDAYS.INTL, which takes a weekend argument — a code or a 7-character pattern — so you can define, for example, a Friday/Saturday weekend instead of Saturday/Sunday.
Other ways people ask this
On the way here you may have searched this as “excel count business days”, “count work days in excel” and “how to count days on excel” — it is all the same task, and this page is the single, complete answer to it.
Why do people search for this in so many different ways?
Because the same task has many names. “excel count business days”, “count work days in excel”, “how to count days on excel” all point at the one operation explained on this page, which is why they all lead here.