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Business Days Calculator

Count working days between two dates. Weekends are always excluded; you can optionally exclude US federal holidays from the sample list.

Choose a start and end date to count business days.

Next step: Working Days Calculator

When to use this calculator

Use this calculator whenever you need to count weekdays only between two known dates—delivery estimates, SLA timelines, payroll windows, or any deadline measured in business days rather than calendar days.

  • Delivery estimates

    Count how many business days a shipment or service window spans between order and delivery dates.

  • SLA timelines

    Check how many business days elapsed within an SLA window between two known timestamps.

  • Payroll windows

    Count weekdays in a pay period for hourly or per-diem calculations.

  • All calendar days instead

    For all calendar days regardless of weekends, use the Days Between Dates calculator. To find someone's age, use the Age Calculator.

Inputs

  • Start date

    The first date of the range.

  • End date

    The last date of the range.

  • Exclude US federal holidays

    Optionally skip dates in the sample US federal holiday dataset (2024–2026) in addition to weekends.

How the calculation works

Business days are counted on the UTC calendar from the start date through the end date, inclusive. Saturdays and Sundays are skipped. When you enable the holiday option, dates in our US federal holiday dataset (2024–2026) are also excluded.

This is useful for delivery estimates, SLA timelines, and payroll windows. For all calendar days regardless of weekends, use the Days Between Dates calculator. To find someone's age, use the Age Calculator.

Worked example

Start date: Monday 6 January 2025. End date: Friday 10 January 2025.

Business days: 5 (Monday through Friday, no weekend days in the range).

If the end date were instead Monday 13 January 2025 (spanning a weekend), the count would be 2 business days: Friday 10 January and Monday 13 January—Saturday and Sunday are skipped.

Edge cases

  • Same start and end date

    A range from a date to itself is 1 business day if that date is a weekday, or 0 if it's a weekend.

  • End date before start date

    You get a negative business-day count with the same magnitude as if the dates were swapped—useful for seeing how far back a deadline was missed.

  • Holiday on a weekend

    A holiday that falls on a Saturday or Sunday is already excluded by the weekend rule, so enabling holiday exclusion doesn't change the count for that date.

  • Full year range

    Counting business days across a full calendar year without holiday exclusion returns roughly 260–262 days, depending on which weekdays January 1 and December 31 fall on.

The Business Days vs Calendar Days Guide explains when weekends and holidays count and which day type applies to deadlines, invoices, and contracts.

The How Business Days Are Calculated Guide and Business Days Between Dates Guide cover the counting rules behind every business-day tool on this site.

The Business Days Calculator and Working Days Calculator count weekdays between two known dates, excluding weekends and optional US federal holidays.

The Add Business Days To Date, Subtract Business Days From Date, and Business Day Offset calculators move a single date forward or backward by a business-day count.

The Business Days Until Date Calculator counts business days remaining from today or a custom date to a target deadline.

The Days Between Dates Calculator counts every calendar day between two dates, including weekends—use it instead of the business-day tools when weekends should count.

The Date Range Calculator and Date Duration Calculator break a range into calendar-day totals or a years/months/days breakdown, with inclusive or exclusive boundary options.

The Add or Subtract Days Calculator shifts a single date forward or backward by days, weeks, or months.

The Age Calculator applies the same calendar breakdown used by Date Duration to a birth date, expressed as years, months, and days.

The Hours Between Dates and Date Difference calculators measure elapsed time between two date-times down to hours, minutes, and seconds.

The Date Format Converter, Unix Timestamp Converter, and Timezone Converter handle format and zone conversion for a single instant rather than a span between two dates.

FAQ

Which holidays are included?
The optional list covers US federal holidays in our sample dataset for 2024–2026. It is meant for quick estimates, not legal or payroll compliance in every jurisdiction.
Is the count inclusive?
Yes. Both the start and end date are included when they are business days. A range from Tuesday to Tuesday (same day) is 1 business day.
What if the end date is before the start?
You get a negative business-day count with the same magnitude as if the dates were swapped—useful for seeing how far back a deadline was missed.
How is this different from the Working Days Calculator?
Same underlying weekday-counting engine—"business days" and "working days" are the same concept under two common names some readers search for separately.

Browse all Date & Business Days