Business Days Calculator

1. Pick a start date. It is counted as day one.
2. Pick an end date on or after the start. It is counted too.
3. Optionally enter the number of public holidays that fall on weekdays in the range.
4. Read the business days, along with total calendar days and weekend days.

Here is what each result means:

A business day, also called a working day, is any day that normal business operates, which almost always means Monday to Friday. Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are not business days, so tasks such as bank transfers, shipping and legal deadlines that are quoted in business days skip them.

Counting business days matters because a five business day deadline set on a Thursday does not land the following Tuesday; it lands a week later once the weekend is skipped. This calculator counts the weekdays for you and lets you subtract holidays, which vary by country and are not applied automatically.

It counts every day from the start to the end, both included, then removes Saturdays and Sundays and subtracts any holidays you enter.

1. Count the total days in the range, including both endpoints.
2. Remove the Saturdays and Sundays to get weekdays.
3. Subtract the number of public holidays that fall on weekdays.

Dates are handled in a fixed time zone so the count does not shift with daylight saving changes.

Suppose the range runs from Monday 2026-09-07 to Friday 2026-09-18, with no holidays.

Calculation: that is 12 calendar days, including both ends. It spans one weekend, a Saturday and a Sunday, which is 2 weekend days, leaving 10 business days.

If one public holiday fell on a weekday inside that range, the business days would drop to 9, while the total calendar days would stay at 12.

Two ranges of the same length can have different business-day counts.

Which Weekdays the Range Starts and Ends On

A range that begins on a Saturday wastes two days immediately, while one that starts on Monday does not.

How Many Weekends It Spans

Each full week removes two days. Longer ranges lose proportionally more to weekends.

Public Holidays

Holidays vary by country and region and are not applied automatically. Enter the number that fall on weekdays inside your range.

Deadlines can be quoted either way, and the difference grows with the length of the period.

For a plain day count or to add days to a date, use the date calculator.

Meeting a Deadline

Work out the exact date a payment, filing or notice period lands when it is quoted in business days. To count backward from a fixed date, use days ago from today.

Estimating Delivery

Shipping and processing times are usually in business days, so weekends push the arrival later than a plain day count.

Planning a Project

Estimate effort in working days rather than calendar days. To turn a duration into an exact end date, try the age and date calculator.

1. Counting Weekends

Using calendar days for a business-day deadline makes it fall too early. Always exclude Saturdays and Sundays.

2. Forgetting Holidays

Public holidays are business days lost. This tool does not know your country, so enter them yourself.

3. Off-by-one on the Endpoints

Decide whether both ends count. This calculator includes both the start and end dates.

4. Ignoring Regional Differences

Some places treat parts of the weekend differently. Confirm the working week that applies to you.

5. Assuming Same-day Cut-offs

Banks and couriers often have daily cut-off times, so a late start day may not count.

The weekday counting is exact, but the tool cannot know your local calendar.

The Monday-to-Friday working week is common but not universal, and where it differs, so does the business-day count.

Much of the Middle East historically used a Friday-Saturday weekend, and several countries have shifted arrangements in recent years, with some moving to Friday-Saturday, others to Saturday-Sunday, and a few to a shorter working week. In parts of South Asia the weekend can be a single day. This matters whenever a deadline or delivery crosses borders: a payment that is a business day away for a sender may fall on the recipient weekend. This calculator assumes a Monday-to-Friday week, so if you are working with a country that differs, adjust the count or confirm against a local calendar.

Banking is where business days matter most to everyday life, because money moves on business days, not calendar days.

Standard bank transfers such as ACH in the United States typically settle in one to three business days, so a payment sent on a Friday may not arrive until the following Tuesday or later once the weekend is skipped. Cheque clearing, direct debits and card settlements all run on business-day cycles. Investment trades settle on a T-plus basis, meaning a set number of business days after the trade date, so the cash or securities arrive business days later, not calendar days. Any public holiday in the chain adds a further day. Understanding this is the difference between expecting money on Monday and being surprised when it lands on Wednesday.

Delivery estimates are almost always quoted in business days, which is why a two-day shipment ordered on Friday often arrives on Tuesday rather than Sunday.

Carriers process and move most parcels on weekdays, with limited or premium weekend service, and warehouses usually pick and pack on business days too. So the clock on a delivery promise generally starts the next business day after the order and counts only weekdays, skipping holidays. When you are estimating an arrival, count business days from dispatch, not from the moment you click buy, and remember that a holiday in the middle of transit pushes everything back by a day.

Legal deadlines are frequently defined in business days precisely to avoid a period expiring on a weekend or holiday when offices and courts are closed.

Notice periods, cooling-off windows, response deadlines and court filing dates are often counted in business days, and the exact rules on whether the first or last day counts can vary by jurisdiction and by the specific rule. Some legal calendars also exclude court holidays that are not general public holidays. Because the consequences of missing a legal deadline can be severe, this calculator is a useful estimate but should never be the final word: always confirm a legal deadline against the governing rules or with a qualified professional, and check whether their counting convention matches this tool inclusive-of-both-ends approach.

Several similar terms are used loosely, but they are not always identical.

For most purposes business days and working days are interchangeable. Trading days are the exception, since a stock exchange has its own holiday calendar that will not match your local bank or postal service.

If you regularly need business-day counts, a spreadsheet can automate them. Most spreadsheet programs include a function, commonly called NETWORKDAYS, that counts the weekdays between two dates and lets you supply a list of holidays to exclude.

You give it a start date, an end date and, optionally, a range of cells listing your public holidays, and it returns the number of business days, both endpoints included. A companion function, often called WORKDAY, does the reverse: it takes a start date and a number of business days and returns the date that many working days later, again skipping weekends and any holidays you list. These are the same operations this calculator performs, and for one-off checks the calculator is faster, while a spreadsheet is handy when you need to process many dates at once.

Business-day windows appear constantly once you start noticing them, and knowing the convention removes a lot of uncertainty.

A refund quoted as five to ten business days can, across a weekend or two and a holiday, take two calendar weeks to appear. A three business day cooling-off period on a contract signed on a Thursday runs into the following week. Same-day funds cut-off times mean a transfer made after a bank daily deadline counts from the next business day, effectively losing a day before the count even begins. In each case the pattern is the same: identify the start point, decide whether the first day counts, then step forward over weekdays only, skipping holidays. This tool does that stepping for you.

Two subtleties can shift a real-world business-day count beyond the raw calendar maths.

The first is the daily cut-off. Banks, courts and couriers often have a time each day after which activity counts as the next business day. Submit a transfer at 6 pm and it may be treated as tomorrow business, quietly adding a day. The second is time zones. When a sender and recipient are in different regions, the same instant can be a different date for each, so a payment sent late on a Friday in one country may already be the weekend in another. This calculator counts whole days in a fixed time zone and does not model cut-offs, so for time-critical transactions, confirm the provider specific rules alongside the day count.

Count the weekdays from the start to the end date, including both, then subtract any public holidays that fall on weekdays. For example, Monday to the following Friday inclusive is 10 business days.

No. Saturdays and Sundays are never business days, so they are excluded from the count. Only Monday to Friday are treated as working days.

It subtracts the number of weekday public holidays you enter, but it does not know your country or region, so it cannot apply them automatically. Add them yourself for an accurate count.

Yes. This calculator includes both the start date and the end date in the range. If you need to exclude the start day, subtract one from the result.

Calendar days count every day including weekends, while business days count only Monday to Friday and exclude holidays. Over long periods the two can differ by weeks.

Because weekends do not count. Five business days from a Thursday, for instance, lands on the following Thursday once the intervening weekend is skipped.

This tool assumes a Monday to Friday week, which is standard in most countries. Some regions use a different working week, so confirm the one that applies to you.

No. Dates are handled in a fixed time zone, so the number of business days does not change when clocks go forward or back.

Standard transfers such as ACH usually settle in one to three business days, so a payment sent on a Friday may not arrive until the following Tuesday or later once the weekend is skipped. Any public holiday in between adds another day.

Not always. Business days are weekdays excluding public holidays, while trading days are the days a specific market is open, which follows that exchange own holiday calendar. The two can differ.

Use the NETWORKDAYS function, which counts weekdays between two dates and lets you exclude a list of holidays. The WORKDAY function does the reverse, returning the date a set number of business days after a start date.

No. The calculation runs entirely in your browser and nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere unless you choose to Save a result, which stays only in this browser.

• Business day definition (US SEC Investor.gov).
• Federal holidays (US Office of Personnel Management).
• Federal Reserve Bank holidays (US Federal Reserve).