Business Days Calculator: Working Days Between Dates

This business days calculator counts the working days between two dates by leaving out weekends and US federal holidays. It is the quickest way to answer questions like “how many working days until the deadline?” or “how many workdays does this project have?” without counting on a calendar by hand.

How to calculate business days

1. Enter the start date.
2. Enter the end date.
3. Tick Include end date if the last day should be counted as a working day.
4. Tick Saturday is a working day if your week runs Monday to Saturday.
5. Read the number of business days and review the list of holidays that were excluded.

The list of excluded holidays is shown with the result, so you can see exactly why the count is lower than the plain number of weekdays.

Which holidays are excluded?

The English version of the calculator uses the US federal holiday calendar. That covers New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day (officially Washington’s Birthday), Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. When a federal holiday falls on a weekend, federal offices usually observe it on the nearest Friday or Monday.

Federal holidays are not the same as company holidays. Many private employers close on some of them but stay open on others, such as Columbus Day or Veterans Day, and many give extra days off like the day after Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve. State holidays, regional observances and half days are not excluded by the calculator, so adjust your count manually if they apply to you.

When a business-day count matters

• Project planning: know how many workdays a sprint or phase really contains.
• Shipping and processing times: “ships in 5 to 7 business days” is easier to translate into a date.
• HR and payroll: estimate working days in a pay period or how many days of leave a vacation uses.
• Legal and administrative deadlines: many response windows are defined in business days.
• Freelancers and contractors: calculate billable days in a month.

Calendar days vs. business days

A period of 10 calendar days always covers 10 days on the calendar. A period of 10 business days usually stretches over two full weeks, and longer when a holiday falls in between. Late November and late December are the classic traps: Thanksgiving and Christmas can quietly push a deadline back. If a rule or contract does not say which type of day it means, ask, because the difference can be significant.

Need the date that lies a number of working days ahead rather than the count between two dates? Switch to the add-days tool and choose business days. For a plain total including weekends, the days between dates calculator is the simpler option.

A quick example

Suppose a task must be finished between the Monday before Thanksgiving and the following Friday. That span holds 10 weekdays, but Thanksgiving Thursday is a federal holiday, so the calculator returns 9 business days and lists Thanksgiving as the excluded date. If your company also closes on the Friday after Thanksgiving, subtract one more day yourself.