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Count working days (Mon–Fri) between two dates, excluding weekends.
Count working days (Mon–Fri) between two dates, excluding weekends.
Enter values above and click Calculate — results will appear here with the formula explained.
Business-day math strips weekends from a range, leaving the days offices actually operate. Delivery estimates, notice periods, settlement dates and project timelines overwhelmingly run on this clock rather than calendar days. The rough mental rule: about 5/7 of calendar days survive, but edge weeks (starting/ending mid-week) break the approximation, which is why counting matters.
Public holidays are the complication: they differ by country, region and even employer, so this tool excludes only Saturdays and Sundays. Subtract known holidays manually when precision matters — most ranges contain just a handful. For jurisdictions with Monday-observed holidays (US federal), flag the observed weekday not the fixed date; UK bank holidays shift further via substitution rules. Keep a holiday calendar alongside this result.
Inclusive versus exclusive counting decides frequent off-by-one disputes. Inclusive counts both endpoints if they're weekdays (a contract running March 1–10 inclusive spans 10 calendar days); exclusive counts only the interior. Settlement conventions add their own layers: T+1 (trade plus one business day), ACT/360 accrual, and cutoff times (e.g. 3 PM wire deadlines) determine which business day actually counts — always confirm the governing definition for financial and legal deadlines.
Work-hour conversion extends the count to effort planning: multiply business days by daily work hours (e.g. 7.5–8). A 15-business-day sprint at 8 hours = 120 work-hours gross, before meetings, leave and context-switching trim realistic capacity to ~70–80%. Pair business days with team capacity, not raw hours, to avoid plans that look staffed and are actually underwater.
International coordination needs weekday awareness beyond your own calendar: Middle-East workweeks (Sun–Thu in many Gulf states), Israeli Sun–Thu with Friday half-days, and shifting weekend definitions create cross-border mismatches. When scheduling multi-country deliverables, confirm each party's business-day definition rather than assuming Monday–Friday is universal.
For project críticos and legal notice periods, pair this count with a buffer: add 1–2 business days for processing, mail and human latency. A deadline that 'just fits' without buffer fails at the first sick day, system outage or courier delay — the buffer is not slack, it is insurance cheap enough to always buy.
Count working days (Mon–Fri) between two dates, excluding weekends. Formula: count of Mon–Fri dates within the selected range. Example: August 3–28, 2026 spans 26 calendar days but only 18 are Mondays-through-Fridays once four weekend pairs drop out.
Business-day math strips weekends from a range, leaving the days offices actually operate. Delivery estimates, notice periods, settlement dates and project timelines overwhelmingly run on this clock rather than calendar days. The rough mental rule: about 5/7 of calendar days survive, but edge weeks (starting/ending mid-week) break the approximation, which is why counting matters.
Public holidays are the complication: they differ by country, region and even employer, so this tool excludes only Saturdays and Sundays. Subtract known holidays manually when precision matters — most ranges contain just a handful. For jurisdictions with Monday-observed holidays (US federal), flag the observed weekday not the fixed date; UK bank holidays shift further via substitution rules. Keep a holiday calendar alongside this result.
Inclusive versus exclusive counting decides frequent off-by-one disputes. Inclusive counts both endpoints if they're weekdays (a contract running March 1–10 inclusive spans 10 calendar days); exclusive counts only the interior. Settlement conventions add their own layers: T+1 (trade plus one business day), ACT/360 accrual, and cutoff times (e.g. 3 PM wire deadlines) determine which business day actually counts — always confirm the governing definition for financial and legal deadlines.
Work-hour conversion extends the count to effort planning: multiply business days by daily work hours (e.g. 7.5–8). A 15-business-day sprint at 8 hours = 120 work-hours gross, before meetings, leave and context-switching trim realistic capacity to ~70–80%. Pair business days with team capacity, not raw hours, to avoid plans that look staffed and are actually underwater.
International coordination needs weekday awareness beyond your own calendar: Middle-East workweeks (Sun–Thu in many Gulf states), Israeli Sun–Thu with Friday half-days, and shifting weekend definitions create cross-border mismatches. When scheduling multi-country deliverables, confirm each party's business-day definition rather than assuming Monday–Friday is universal.
For project críticos and legal notice periods, pair this count with a buffer: add 1–2 business days for processing, mail and human latency. A deadline that 'just fits' without buffer fails at the first sick day, system outage or courier delay — the buffer is not slack, it is insurance cheap enough to always buy.
August 3–28, 2026 spans 26 calendar days but only 18 are Mondays-through-Fridays once four weekend pairs drop out. An exclusive interior count (excluding both endpoints if weekdays) would be 16 — two fewer — showing how endpoint convention decides contractual day counts.
Formulas are standard public references (see our methodology). External standards are cited in the text where they apply.
Last reviewed: September 2026 · Report an error