Home > Formulas > Date > Date Functions Excel Date Formula ExamplesHow to show month name or weekday for a date, first or last day of the month, week start date, subtracting dates, and more Microsoft Excel date formulas. Get the free workbook with date formula in Excel examples. There are specialized date formulas on these pages: Leap Year Calculations, Easter Date Calculations, and see how to find the Nth Weekday in Month (e.g. the 4th Thursday in November) And if your dates won't change format, see the Date Format Troubleshooting Tips page. |
Calculate Number of DaysIf you wonder how to calculate date difference in Excel, it's just like calculating the difference between two numbers on an Excel worksheet.
To find the number of calendar days between two specific dates, you don't need a special function. Just subtract the earlier date from the later date, using the minus sign. Subtract Dates in ExcelIn this example, there is a January start date in cell A2 and a June end date in cell B2. To find the number of days between the start date and end date, use this formula in cell C2:
This formula starts with a cell reference to the end date in cell B2, and subtracts the start date in cell A2 Tip: If the result looks like a date, instead of a number, change the cell's number format to General Notes
|
Calculate End DateYou can also use a simple Excel formula to calculate end date, based on a start date and number of days. In this example, there is a January start date in cell C1 and a number of days to add, in cell C3. To find the end date, use this formula in cell C5:
This formula starts with a cell reference to the start date in cell B2, and uses the plus sign to add the number of days from cell C3 Tip: Be sure to format cell C5 with a date format, such as Short Date. |
Number of Working DaysTo calculate the number of working days between two dates, there IS a special Excel function. You can use the NETWORKDAYS function. The NETWORKDAYS function has 2 required arguments and one optional argument:
In this example, the project start date is in cell B2, and the project due date is in cell C2. In cell B5, the following formula calculates the number of working days between those two dates:
Include Holiday DatesThe optional 3rd argument for NETWORKDAYS is a list of holiday dates. In the next example, the workbook has a list of holiday dates, and the list is a named range, MyHol.
Because there is a holiday within the date range, the formula result is one number lower. |
Date Cell Filled with Number SignsSometimes when you're working with date functions, the formula cell shows all number signs (hash tags, pound signs) instead of a number or date. Cell Too NarrowIn some cases, this happens because the cell is too small to show the date. To fix that problem, make the column wider, so the formatted date will fit. Negative NumbersAnother reason that date cells are filled with number signs is that a formula reurned a negative number, and the cell is formatted as a date:
For example, in the screen shot shown below, the formula cell C4 shows all number signs, instead of a number of days between the start date and end date. This happened because:
|
Get End of Month DateIf you need to calculate the first or last day of a month, the EOMONTH (end of month) function works well. In this example, the date is in cell B2.
The EOMONTH uses 2 arguments -- Start Date, and Number of Months. To get a date in the current month, use zero as the number of months. Here are a few examples: --Last day of previous month: =EOMONTH(B2,-1) --First day of selected month: =EOMONTH(B2),-1)+1 --Last day of selected month: =EOMONTH(B2,0) --First day of next month: =EOMONTH(B2,0)+1 --Last day of selected month, last year: =EOMONTH(B2,-12) Or, combine the EOMONTH function with TODAY, to get dates relative to the current date. For example: --First day of current month: =EOMONTH(TODAY(),-1)+1 |
Add or Subtract Months with EDATEUse the EDATE function to add or subtract a specific number of months, based on a start date.
The Excel EDATE function has two arguments in its syntax, and both arguments are required:
EDATE ExamplesIn the EDATE examples shown in the screen shot below:
The EDATE formula result is 1 month after the start date, but February 29th is not a valid date -- the month only has 28 days. So, the EDATE function returns the last date in February - February 28th. |
Get Date Value with INTIf a cell contains a combined date and time, you can extract just the date value, by using the INT function. Excel stores dates as numbers, with the integer representing the date, and a decimal portion representing the time. The INT function returns just the integer portion of that number, which represents the date. In this example, the combined date/time is in cell A2. To get the date, enter the following formula in cell B2: =INT(A2) |
Dates in GetPivotData formulaIf you're using dates with the GETPIVOTDATA formula, you might have problems with date references. If the date format in the formula is not an exact match for the date format in the pivot table, the result might be an error. To help you avoid this problem, this short video shows a few Date workarounds for the GetPivotData function. There are more details and written steps on the GETPIVOTDATA page. Video Timeline
|
Get Date From Text StringExcel's date functions won't work if the value is a text string, instead of a real date. For example, imported data might have dates in this format -- YYYYMMDD. To get the date from that string (it might be formatted as text or a number), you can use: -- LEFT, MID and RIGHT functions (traditional, longer formula) -- TEXT function (short formula) |
Get Date with LEFT, MID, Right FunctionsThe most common way to get the date from a YYYYMMDD string or number, is to use the DATE function, with LEFT, MID, and RIGHT extracting the year, month and day numbers. =DATE(LEFT(A2,4), MID(A2,5,2), RIGHT(A2,2)) This video shows how to extract the year, month and day into separate columns, using these 3 formulas:
|
Get Date with TEXT FunctionInstead of using the long LEFT, MID, RIGHT formula, UniMord shared a formula that's much shorter. =--TEXT(A2, "0000-00-00") In that short formula:
NOTE: This might not work for all regional settings, so test carefully before you use it in your workbooks. Unimord based this formula on a StackOverflow answer from Ron Rosenfeld. |
Get the Sample FileTo see how these formulas work, download the sample Date Functions workbook. The file is zipped, and is in xlsx file format |
Related Tutorials |
Last updated: April 5, 2023 3:59 PM