To calculate working days between two dates, count only the dates your chosen schedule treats as workdays, then exclude applicable holidays and closures. For a Monday-to-Friday schedule, Excel and Google Sheets can do this with NETWORKDAYS. Use NETWORKDAYS.INTL when your days off fall elsewhere in the week.
The important part is choosing the calendar before trusting the total. A shop open on Saturdays, an office closed on federal holidays, and a team working four days a week can have different answers for exactly the same date range.
What information does a working-days calculator need?
Write down four inputs: the first date, the last date, the recurring nonworking days, and the individual dates when work stops. Also decide whether the first and last dates should count. Keep that decision beside the result so another person can reproduce it.
For example, a planning note could say: “November 2 through November 13, 2026; both endpoints included; Saturdays and Sundays excluded; November 11 closed.” That is much clearer than simply writing “nine business days.” It tells a colleague which assumptions to change if the office stays open that Wednesday.
This is a work-schedule count, not a measure of elapsed time or someone’s age. It also does not establish a legal filing deadline. For court, tax, contractual, or other formal deadlines, check the governing instructions and responsible authority rather than applying a generic business-day result.
How do you count a simple Monday-to-Friday period?
Consider Monday, November 2, through Friday, November 13, 2026, including both dates. The first week contributes November 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The second contributes November 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13. That makes ten working days before any holiday adjustment.
There are twelve calendar dates in that inclusive interval. Removing Saturday, November 7, and Sunday, November 8, leaves ten. This small example is useful for checking a new calculator: if it reports nine before holidays, look for a setting that leaves out the starting date.
Do not estimate every month as four five-day weeks. The leftover dates and the weekdays on which a month begins and ends affect the total. For an unfamiliar tool, test a short period you can count on paper before using a longer range.
How do you use NETWORKDAYS in Excel?
In Excel, put =DATE(2026,11,2) in A2 and =DATE(2026,11,13) in B2. Then enter the following formula in C2. It returns 10. NETWORKDAYS excludes Saturday and Sunday and counts eligible dates at both ends of the interval.
=NETWORKDAYS(A2,B2)To exclude a closure on November 11, put =DATE(2026,11,11) in H2 and use the formula below. The result becomes 9. Microsoft documents the optional holiday range in its NETWORKDAYS reference.
=NETWORKDAYS(A2,B2,H2:H2)For a reusable sheet, keep a clearly labeled closure-date column rather than burying exclusions in a formula. Extend the reference when adding more dates. If you copy the formula to other rows, an absolute range such as $H$2:$H$10 keeps those holiday cells fixed while A2 and B2 move.
Which holidays should you exclude?
Use the dates the relevant workplace actually observes. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s federal holiday calendar lists Veterans Day on November 11 in 2026, but that alone does not tell you whether a particular private business closes. Our example excludes it only because we explicitly chose that closure.
Ask for the organization’s calendar when planning around someone else’s availability. Check observed dates as well as holiday names, especially when the named holiday falls on a weekend. Add shutdown days or other full-day closures if they belong in your planning model.
Avoid subtracting the entire holiday-list length manually. A listed date outside the interval should not reduce the answer. Nor should a closure already excluded as a weekend reduce it a second time. For the example above, adding Saturday, November 7, to the holiday list still leaves nine eligible dates.
How do you handle different weekends?
NETWORKDAYS.INTL accepts a weekend setting before the holiday range. Microsoft’s NETWORKDAYS.INTL documentation assigns 7 to Friday-and-Saturday weekends and 11 to Sunday-only weekends. For the same A2 and B2 dates, without holidays, these formulas return 9 and 11 respectively.
=NETWORKDAYS.INTL(A2,B2,7)
=NETWORKDAYS.INTL(A2,B2,11)You can also describe the week with seven characters, Monday first and Sunday last. A 1 excludes that weekday; a 0 includes it. Keep the sequence inside quotation marks. For example, “0000011” excludes Saturday and Sunday, while “0000111” excludes Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
=NETWORKDAYS.INTL(A2,B2,"0000011",H2:H2)That final formula returns 9 with our November 11 closure. Write the seven weekday names above a scratch row when building a custom pattern; it is easy to reverse which end represents Monday.
Does the same approach work in Google Sheets?
Yes. Google Sheets provides both NETWORKDAYS and NETWORKDAYS.INTL. The formulas above use date cells and supported arguments. Use DATE(year,month,day) when entering the example inputs so slash-separated dates do not introduce ambiguity.
Do not type an unquoted date such as 11/2/2026 directly into a function argument: Sheets can interpret the slashes as division. Also distinguish counting workdays between dates from finding a future date after a specified number of workdays. Google directs the latter task to WORKDAY or WORKDAY.INTL.
What should you check before using the answer?
Check one ordinary weekday, one weekend, and one closure against the calendar. Confirm the year, endpoint convention, and weekend pattern. If a total looks wrong, review those inputs before changing the formula. A count of eligible dates also cannot tell you actual staffing hours, partial-day availability, or how long a task will take.
Keep the result together with its assumptions and holiday-list source. That turns a one-off answer into a calculation you can update and explain when the schedule changes.
If a paper view helps you check the dates, you can browse undated weekly planners on Amazon. A plain calendar or spreadsheet is enough to do the calculation.
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