How to Count Workdays Between Two Dates

What a workday is

A workday, or working day, is a day on which work is normally done. For most calculators and spreadsheets that means Monday to Friday. Saturday and Sunday are weekend days, and public holidays are a separate matter that depends on where you are.

Counting workdays is useful for delivery times, project plans, notice periods, service-level agreements and anything else that is promised in working days. Because weekends take two days out of every seven, the answer is always smaller than the number of calendar days.

The fast method: weeks first

Start with whole weeks. Every full week contains exactly 5 workdays, so divide the number of days by 7 and multiply the whole weeks by 5. Then handle the leftover days one at a time and count only those that fall on Monday to Friday.

Take 2 March 2026 to 17 April 2026. That is 46 days, which is 6 whole weeks and 4 extra days. Six weeks give 30 workdays. The 4 extra days are Monday 13 April to Thursday 16 April, all workdays, which gives 34 workdays in total, counting from 2 March up to but not including 17 April.

If you also want to count 17 April, the inclusive count, add one more workday because it is a Friday: 35.

Why the start weekday matters

The leftover days are where mistakes happen, because it depends on which weekday the range starts on. Four extra days that begin on a Friday contain only one workday, since Saturday and Sunday are skipped, while four extra days that begin on a Monday contain four.

A reliable way is to write the weekday of the start date, then step through the extra days and tick off the weekends. For a handful of days that takes a few seconds and prevents a miscount.

Another shortcut is to move both dates to the nearest Monday and handle the difference. This is useful when you do many counts, but for a single question the leftover-days method is quicker.

Weekends and holidays

The Monday-to-Friday rule suits most of Europe, the Americas and much of Asia, but it is not universal. In some countries the weekend is Friday and Saturday, and the United Arab Emirates changed its public-sector weekend to Saturday and Sunday on 1 January 2022. If the people you work with use a different weekend, adjust the count.

Public holidays are not weekends, and each country and region has its own. A range that includes Christmas, a national day or a regional holiday has fewer working days than the plain Monday-to-Friday count suggests. This calculator does not subtract holidays, because it cannot know which ones apply to you.

The simplest way to include holidays is to take the workday count and subtract one for every holiday that falls on a weekday inside the range. Holidays that fall on a weekend do not change the count.

How many workdays are in a month or a year

The number varies. October 2026 has 22 workdays, and a typical month has 20 to 23. A year has 260 or 261 weekdays in most years: 2026 has 261, 2025 has 261, 2024 had 262 because it was a leap year starting on a Monday, and 2028 will have 260.

After public holidays are removed, a typical year has somewhere between 245 and 255 working days, depending on the country. That is why a full-time employee typically works roughly 250 days a year.

Adding and subtracting workdays

The reverse question is just as common: what date is 10 workdays from now? Move forward one day at a time and count only Monday to Friday. Ten workdays after Monday 2 November 2026 is Monday 16 November 2026, because two weekends are skipped. Twenty workdays after Thursday 22 October 2026 is Thursday 19 November 2026.

If the start date itself falls on a weekend, the first workday you count is the next Monday. State the rule in writing if it matters, because some contracts start counting on the next working day and some on the day after the event.

Worked example with a start on a Friday

Count the workdays from Friday 23 October 2026 to Friday 6 November 2026, not including the end date. That is 14 days, exactly two weeks, so the answer is 10 workdays: the Friday you start on, then Monday to Friday, then Monday to Thursday, and nothing for the two weekends.

Now change the end to Saturday 7 November 2026. That is 15 days, but the extra day is a Saturday, so the workday count is still 10. The workday count only goes up when the extra day is a Monday to Friday.

This is a good habit when you check any result: ask whether the extra days fall on weekdays or on a weekend. It explains why two ranges that differ by a day can have the same number of workdays.

Using the calculator

On the days-between tab, enter the start and end dates. The row labelled Workdays shows the Monday-to-Friday count and the next row shows the weekend days, so the two always add up to the total.

On the Add or subtract tab, type a number in the Workdays field to move forward or backward by working days. You can combine it with weeks and days, and the result shows the new date with its weekday.