The Excel WORKDAY function answers one of the most common scheduling questions: what date is N business days from today? It takes a start date, adds (or subtracts) a number of workdays, and automatically skips weekends, plus any holidays you list. The syntax is =WORKDAY(start_date, days, [holidays]). Whether you’re setting project deadlines, SLA due dates, or shipping estimates, WORKDAY keeps weekend days out of your math. For more everyday utilities, browse the FaridiaTech tools collection.
Syntax, argument by argument
- start_date the date to count from. Use a real date value (a cell containing a date, or the
DATE()function), not text that merely looks like a date. - days how many workdays to move. Positive moves forward, negative moves backward, zero returns the start date itself (adjusted if it falls on a weekend).
- [holidays] optional: a range of cells containing holiday dates to skip as well. This is what makes WORKDAY genuinely useful for business calendars.
Important subtlety: WORKDAY counts forward from the start date, the start date itself is day zero, not day one. So =WORKDAY(DATE(2026,10,16), 1) returns Monday, October 19, 2026 (October 16, 2026 is a Friday), not the Friday itself.
Worked example 1: project deadline
A task starts Monday, October 19, 2026, and needs 10 business days. Put the start date in A2 and use =WORKDAY(A2, 10). Counting by hand is error prone: the business days after Oct 19 are Oct 20, 21, 22, 23 (4), Oct 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 (9 total), and Nov 2 (10). Excel skips both intervening weekends and returns Monday, November 2, 2026 no manual calendar counting required.
Worked example 2: excluding holidays
List your holidays in a range, say D2:D10 contains 2026-12-25 and 2026-12-26. Then =WORKDAY(DATE(2026,12,21), 5, D2:D10) counts five workdays from Monday December 21, skipping the weekend and Christmas. Without the holiday list the same formula would land on Monday, December 28; with the holidays excluded it lands on Tuesday, December 29. Keep the holiday list in a dedicated range (ideally on a settings sheet) so you update it once per year instead of editing every formula.
Worked example 3: counting backward
Need to know when to start a 7 business day task to finish by Friday, November 6, 2026? Use a negative: =WORKDAY(DATE(2026,11,6), -7). Excel walks backward over workdays only, returning Wednesday, October 28, 2026. Negative values make WORKDAY a planning tool in both directions.
Custom weekends with WORKDAY.INTL
Standard WORKDAY assumes Saturday, Sunday weekends, but many businesses differ. WORKDAY.INTL adds a weekend argument: =WORKDAY.INTL(start_date, days, [weekend], [holidays]). The weekend codes include:
1(or omitted), Saturday, Sunday (the default)2Sunday, Monday7Friday, Saturday (common in many Middle Eastern countries)11Sunday only (six day work week)17Saturday only
You can also pass a 7 character string of 1s and 0s (Monday through Sunday) for fully custom patterns "0000011" means Saturday and Sunday off, identical to code 1. This is the cleanest way to model shift patterns and regional weekends.
WORKDAY vs NETWORKDAYS
These two are siblings with opposite jobs. WORKDAY takes a start date and a number of days and returns an end date. NETWORKDAYS takes a start and end date and returns the number of workdays between them. Use WORKDAY to find deadlines (“when is 10 workdays from now?”); use NETWORKDAYS to measure durations (“how many workdays did this take?”). Both accept the same optional holiday list, and both have .INTL variants.
Common errors
- Dates stored as text. If
start_dateis text like"10/16/2026"typed into a text formatted cell, WORKDAY may return#VALUE!. Convert withDATEVALUE()or reformat the cell as a date. - Forgetting the start date isn’t counted. Off by one errors are the classic WORKDAY bug, remember day zero.
- Hardcoding holidays. Typing holiday dates directly into formulas instead of a range means updating every formula each year. Use a named range like
Holidays2026. - Result showing as a serial number. If the cell displays
46000instead of a date, just format the cell as a date, the value is correct.
Business day math also underpins payroll questions like why overtime starts after 40 hours worth reading if you schedule hourly staff.
Worked example 4: a deadline that crosses a holiday week
The examples above show WORKDAY in calm water. This one adds the complication that breaks most hand built schedules: a holiday in the middle of the count. A support team promises a client a fix within 10 business days, starting Monday, November 23, 2026. The office is closed on Thursday, November 26 and Friday, November 27, and those two dates sit in the holiday range Holidays. The formula is =WORKDAY(DATE(2026,11,23), 10, Holidays).
Count it by hand to see what the function is doing. Starting from Monday November 23 as day zero, the countable days are November 24 (1) and November 25 (2). November 26 and 27 are holidays, and November 28 and 29 are the weekend, so four calendar days pass with nothing counted. The count resumes on Monday November 30 (3), then December 1 (4), 2 (5), 3 (6), and 4 (7), skips the weekend of December 5 and 6, and finishes with December 7 (8), 8 (9), and 9 (10). The deadline is Wednesday, December 9, 2026. Leave the holidays out of the same formula and Excel returns Monday, December 7, two working days early, which in client terms is a promise you would break. Two closed days moved the answer by two days, exactly as they should, and exactly what a calendar count done from memory tends to miss.
The same setup runs backwards for planning. Suppose a deliverable is due Monday, March 2, 2026 and the work takes 10 business days. =WORKDAY(DATE(2026,3,2), -10) counts back over February’s workdays and returns Monday, February 16, 2026 as the latest start date. Pair that kind of forward and back scheduling with pay planning and the picture completes: once you know the working days in a period, a paycheck calculator turns them into expected pay, and an hourly to salary calculator helps you compare a role quoted by the hour against one quoted by the year.
The four date functions compared
Excel’s business day family has four members, and picking the wrong one is a common source of quiet errors. This table separates them by the one question that matters: what do you hand the function, and what does it hand back?
| Function | You give it | It returns | Custom weekends? |
|---|---|---|---|
| WORKDAY | A start date and a number of days | An end date | No, Saturday and Sunday only |
| WORKDAY.INTL | A start date, a number of days, and a weekend code | An end date | Yes, codes or a 7 character pattern |
| NETWORKDAYS | A start date and an end date | A count of workdays | No, Saturday and Sunday only |
| NETWORKDAYS.INTL | A start date, an end date, and a weekend code | A count of workdays | Yes, codes or a 7 character pattern |
One asymmetry hides in that table and catches people out. WORKDAY treats its start date as day zero and does not count it, while NETWORKDAYS counts both its start and end dates when they fall on workdays. So the round trip is not perfectly symmetric: count 10 workdays forward from a Monday with WORKDAY, then measure the same span with NETWORKDAYS, and you will get 11, not 10, the starting Monday is included in the second count. Neither function is wrong; they simply answer slightly different questions, and knowing which question you asked prevents an afternoon of confusion.
Common mistakes to avoid with holiday ranges and INTL codes
- Using a relative holiday range, then copying the formula. If the third argument is written as D2:D10 without dollar signs, copying the formula down a column shifts the range and quietly stops excluding the holidays. Lock it as $D$2:$D$10, or use a named range.
- Worrying about holidays that fall on weekends. A holiday listed on a Saturday changes nothing, the day was already excluded as a weekend. Listing the full official calendar, weekends included, is harmless and simpler than pruning it.
- Picking a weekend code from the wrong region’s list. Code 7 means Friday and Saturday. A team that works a Friday, Saturday weekend but leaves the default code 1 in place will promise Monday deliveries for work that was never scheduled. Confirm the code against the calendar your team actually keeps.
- Feeding the function a deadline that is itself a holiday. A negative WORKDAY count starting from a holiday or weekend begins stepping from that date regardless; the result can surprise you by a day. Start backward counts from a confirmed working day.
- Mixing WORKDAY and NETWORKDAYS in one plan. Because of the day zero versus inclusive counting difference described above, a plan built with one function and checked with the other appears to be off by one. Standardise on one function per workbook and document the choice.
Worked example 5: measuring a finished project with NETWORKDAYS
Deadlines get planned with WORKDAY, but finished work gets measured with its sibling, and confusing the two in a report is the last trap this guide will spring. A project kicked off on Monday, January 5, 2026 and was delivered on Monday, January 26, 2026. How many business days did it actually consume? The formula is =NETWORKDAYS(DATE(2026,1,5), DATE(2026,1,26)). Count the weekdays by hand: January 5 to 9 gives 5, January 12 to 16 gives 5 more, January 19 to 23 gives 5 more, and Monday January 26 itself adds 1, a total of 16 business days. Note that NETWORKDAYS counts both the start and the delivery day, which is why the figure is 16 even though WORKDAY needed only 15 steps to travel from the same start to the same finish.
Add the office’s holiday list and the measurement tightens further: if Monday, January 19 was a listed holiday, the same formula with the range attached returns 15. Report that figure carelessly, “the project took 15 days” next to a plan that said 16, and you have manufactured a mystery out of a definition. The habit that prevents it is boring and effective: wherever a workbook reports a duration, note next to it which function produced it and whether holidays were excluded. Future readers, including future you, will be grateful.
Frequently asked questions
Does WORKDAY include the start date in its count?
No. The start date is day zero; counting begins with the next workday. =WORKDAY(start, 1) returns the next business day after the start date (or the start date itself moved forward if it falls on a weekend).
How do I exclude holidays in WORKDAY?
Pass a range of holiday dates as the third argument: =WORKDAY(A2, 10, $D$2:$D$10). Both WORKDAY and WORKDAY.INTL skip any listed date that falls on a weekday.
What’s the difference between WORKDAY and NETWORKDAYS?
WORKDAY computes an end date from a start date plus a number of workdays. NETWORKDAYS computes the number of workdays between two dates. One finds when; the other counts how many.
How do I set a custom weekend like Friday, Saturday?
Use WORKDAY.INTL with weekend code 7: =WORKDAY.INTL(A2, 10, 7, holidays). For anything non standard, pass a 7 character 1/0 string instead of a code.
Can WORKDAY count backward?
Yes, use a negative days value. =WORKDAY(deadline, -7) tells you the latest start date for a 7 business day task ending on the deadline.
Why does WORKDAY show a number instead of a date?
Excel stores dates as serial numbers, and the result cell is formatted as General. Change the cell’s number format to Date and the readable date appears.