Business Day Calculator
Count working days between two dates, or find the date a set number of working days away — with weekends, public holidays and your own days off all taken out.
Instant answers
Works offline once loaded
Nothing you type is sent anywhere
Weekends and holidays excluded
Several country calendars
Add your own days off
The range
Notice periods and leave are usually inclusive
Add your own days off
Company shutdowns, local holidays, anything the built-in list misses
Working days
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Working days—
Calendar days—
Non-working days—
Public holidays removed—
Your own days off—
Working weeks—
Working hours—
Share of the range
Count working days from a date
Deadline
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Public holidays in range
Working days month by month
| Month | Calendar days | Working days | Holidays |
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Instructions
How to use this calculator
Step by step
- Set the two dates. The headline number is the working days between them, with weekends and — if you pick a country — public holidays taken out.
- Choose the counting style. Inclusive counting includes both end dates, which is what notice periods, leave requests and most contractual deadlines mean. Exclusive counting starts the day after, which is how many court rules are written.
- Pick a public holiday calendar if you want one. The dates are generated from the standard rules for each country, including the moving Easter holidays, so any year works.
- Untick any day of the week that is not a working day for you. A four-day week or a Sunday-to-Thursday week is handled by unticking and ticking boxes, and every figure on the page follows.
- Paste your own days off — company shutdowns, regional holidays, planned leave — one date per line in YYYY-MM-DD form.
- Use the second panel to count a number of working days from a date. This is the tool for "ten working days from today" deadlines, and it tells you how many calendar days that turned out to be.
- The month-by-month table breaks the range down, which is what you want when planning a project or checking an invoice covering several months.
Good to know
- Always check whether a deadline is in working days or calendar days. Ten working days is two full weeks; ten calendar days is a week and a half. The difference has cost people appeals.
- A public holiday that falls on a weekend does not reduce the working-day count, because that day was not being worked anyway. Substitute days are what matter, and the built-in calendars generate them where the country uses them.
- The holiday lists here are national. Regional and state holidays — Scotland, Northern Ireland, individual US states and Australian states — are not included and can be significant. Add them by hand.
- For a four-day week, untick Friday rather than dividing the answer by five. Which day you drop changes how many holidays actually fall on working days.
- Working days per month vary from 19 to 23 in a standard week. If you are budgeting a monthly rate against a day rate, use the month table rather than assuming 21.
- When you set a deadline in working days, say which calendar you mean. "Ten working days" between two companies in different countries can differ by two or three days over a holiday period.
The maths behind it
- Working days count of days where the weekday is worked, and not a holiday Iterated day by day so every exclusion is applied exactly once.
- Inclusive count start through end, both included Exclusive counting begins on the day after the start.
- Nth weekday of a month first of the month + ((target − first weekday) mod 7) + 7(n−1) Used for holidays like the third Monday in January.
- Easter Sunday anonymous Gregorian computus Fixes Good Friday, Easter Monday and everything reckoned from them.
- US observance Saturday → the Friday before, Sunday → the Monday after The federal rule for fixed-date holidays.
- UK substitute day move forward to the next weekday Christmas on a Saturday gives bank holidays on the Monday and Tuesday.
Are the public holiday dates reliable?
They are generated from the published rules and are correct for national holidays in the countries listed, for any year. They cannot know about one-off holidays — royal events, national days of mourning, newly created holidays — or about regional variation. Treat them as a strong default and add anything specific to your situation.
Should I count inclusively or exclusively?
Read the wording of whatever set the deadline. "Within ten working days of receipt" almost always excludes the day of receipt and counts from the next working day. Leave entitlement and notice periods normally include both ends. Where it genuinely is not stated, the safer assumption is the one that gives you less time.
Why is my four-day week not simply four fifths of the answer?
Because holidays are attached to particular weekdays. If you never work Fridays, Good Friday costs you nothing, while a run of Monday bank holidays costs you a quarter of your working week each time. Untick the day and the calculator handles it properly.
What counts as a non-working day here?
Any weekday you have unticked, any public holiday in the selected calendar that falls on a day you would otherwise work, and any date you have added yourself. The summary line breaks the total down into those three categories.
Can I count backwards to find when to start?
Yes — set the direction to backwards in the second panel. This is how you work out the latest date to begin a task that takes fifteen working days and must be finished by the end of the month.
How many working days are in a year?
Between 249 and 253 in a standard five-day week before public holidays, depending on how the year falls. Subtract the public holidays for your country — typically eight in England and Wales, eleven in the United States — and the usual planning figure is around 250 less holidays and leave.