CalcOak

Business Days Calculator: count working days between dates or add business days, skipping weekends and holidays

Add custom holidays or closures

How to use this calculator

Choose a mode at the top. "Days between two dates" tells you how many working days separate a start and an end date, which is what you need for contract notice periods, statutory response deadlines and project planning. "Add or subtract business days" starts from a date and steps forward or back a set number of working days, which answers questions like "when is fifteen business days from today?" or "what was the last working day before a deadline?".

Pick the country whose holidays apply. If you work with a client abroad, run the calculation twice: what counts as a working day for you may not for them. The weekend selector handles countries where the weekend falls on Friday and Saturday, and the custom box lets you paste in company shutdowns, regional holidays or any other dates that should not count, one per line in year-month-day order.

The two "include" checkboxes decide whether the boundary dates count. Leaving both ticked matches the behaviour of the NETWORKDAYS function in Excel and Google Sheets. For a rule phrased as "within N business days of receipt", untick the start date so that counting begins the following working day.

Why use this rather than a calendar

Counting weekdays on a calendar is easy to get wrong by one, and public holidays are the usual culprit. Many countries move holidays that fall on a weekend to the nearest weekday, and the substitute days follow different rules from place to place: the United States shifts a Saturday holiday to Friday, the United Kingdom shifts it to Monday, and Germany does not shift it at all. This calculator encodes those rules, including moveable feasts such as Good Friday and Easter Monday, so the count is right without you having to check a holiday list.

Because the holidays are computed from rules rather than a fixed table, it works for any year, past or future. Every result also lists exactly which holidays were skipped, so if a date on that list does not apply to you, you can see it and adjust rather than trusting a number blindly.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a business day?+

A business day is any weekday that is not a public holiday. By default the calculator treats Saturday and Sunday as the weekend and removes the national public holidays of the country you select. You can change the weekend days for regions that rest on Friday and Saturday, and add your own company closures.

Which holidays are included for each country?+

The United States list is the eleven federal holidays with their observed dates. The United Kingdom uses the England and Wales bank holidays. Canada uses the federal statutory holidays. Australia uses the holidays observed in every state and territory, and Germany uses the nine nationwide holidays. Regional holidays, such as state or provincial days, are not included; add them in the custom box if they affect you.

Is the start date counted?+

That depends on the setting you choose. Spreadsheet functions such as NETWORKDAYS include both the start and end dates, so that is the default. If you are counting days after an event, for example "ten business days after receipt", untick "include start date" so counting begins the next working day.

What happens if I add business days and land on a holiday?+

It cannot happen. When adding or subtracting business days the calculator only steps through days that are actually working days, so the answer is always a weekday that is not a holiday. If the start date itself is a weekend or holiday, counting begins from the next working day.

How far into the future does the holiday data go?+

Holidays are calculated from the rules rather than looked up from a fixed table, so any year works. Governments occasionally declare one-off holidays, such as a coronation or a day of mourning, and those cannot be predicted; add them manually if you know about one.

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