November 7, 2026 7 min read

How to Count Business Days (and Add Them to a Date)

To count business days between two dates, count the weekdays (Monday to Friday) in the range and subtract any public holidays that fall on a weekday. From Monday 2 November to Monday 30 November 2026 there are 21 weekdays; take away Veterans Day and Thanksgiving and you get 19 US business days.

What counts as a business day

In the US, the UK and most of Europe, a business day is any Monday to Friday that is not a public holiday. Saturdays and Sundays are not business days, even for shops that open on them. When a contract, a bank or a retailer says "business days", that is the default unless they define it otherwise.

The holiday list is where definitions split. Banks follow their own closing calendar, which in the US mostly tracks the federal holidays. A shipping promise usually means the seller's working days, so a warehouse that closes on the Friday after Thanksgiving may not count it, even though it is not a federal holiday. A legal deadline follows the court's or agency's own rule. If the number matters, find the calendar the other side uses before you count.

One more distinction trips people up: business days are not calendar days. "Pay within 30 days" usually means 30 calendar days, weekends included; counting the days between two dates covers that case.

Countries with different weekends

The Monday to Friday rule assumes a Saturday and Sunday weekend, which not every country uses.

• Saudi Arabia: weekend on Friday and Saturday since June 2013, when it moved from Thursday and Friday.
• Israel: most offices work Sunday to Thursday, so Friday and Saturday are the weekend.
• United Arab Emirates: the federal government moved to a Saturday and Sunday weekend from 1 January 2022, with a short working Friday. Sharjah chose a three-day weekend of Friday to Sunday, and private employers may set their own week.

So the same date range can hold a different number of business days depending on where the work is done. For 2 to 30 November 2026, a Friday and Saturday weekend also gives 21 working days before holidays, but they are different days: Sunday 8 November is a working day in Riyadh and a day off in New York.

Counting by hand

For short ranges you can count on a calendar. For longer ones, use whole weeks:

1. Count the calendar days in the range, including both the start and end dates.
2. Divide by 7. Each whole week contributes exactly 5 business days.
3. Look at the leftover days (0 to 6) and count how many of them are weekdays.
4. Subtract each public holiday that falls on a weekday inside the range.

Decide early whether the start day counts. "Between" in everyday speech often excludes it, while spreadsheet functions include both ends. If the start date is a business day and you want to exclude it, subtract one.

The date calculator shows business days (Monday to Friday) under the day count. Tick "Include the end date" to count both ends, then subtract the holidays yourself, since the calculator does not know which holidays apply to you.

Adding business days to a date

For "ships within 10 business days" or "respond within 5 business days", the usual convention is that day 1 is the next business day after the start, not the start itself. Step forward one day at a time, skipping weekends and holidays, until you have counted the number.

The holiday season shows why the list matters: two holidays push the December example forward by two business days, which is four calendar days because a weekend sits in between. In the date calculator, switch to the add tab and tick "Count weeks and days as business days" to add weekdays to any date. To watch a deadline approach, put the result into the countdown. For legal and contractual deadlines with their own counting rules, see how deadline days are counted.

Spreadsheet formulas

Excel and Google Sheets have four functions for this. They take dates, an optional weekend setting and an optional range of holiday dates.

In the examples, H1:H2 holds 11 November and 26 November 2026. Enter dates with DATE() or as real date cells; Microsoft warns that dates typed as text can give wrong results. WORKDAY returns a serial number, so format the cell as a date.

The weekend argument in the .INTL versions is a code or a seven-character string. Code 1 is Saturday and Sunday (the default), 7 is Friday and Saturday, 11 is Sunday only and 17 is Saturday only. The string form lists Monday to Sunday with 1 for a day off, so "0000110" means Friday and Saturday off and "0000011" is the standard weekend. A negative day count in WORKDAY counts backwards, which is how you find the last day to send something that must arrive 5 business days before a date.

For a payroll sheet, combine NETWORKDAYS with your company holiday range to get the working days in a pay period, then convert hours as described in minutes to decimal hours. Overtime is a separate weekly calculation; see how to calculate overtime under the FLSA.

Holidays and observed days

A holiday that falls on a weekend usually moves to a weekday for people who work Monday to Friday. For US federal employees, a holiday on Saturday is observed on the Friday before (5 U.S.C. 6103(b)), and a holiday on Sunday is observed on the Monday after (Executive Order 11582). The observed day is the one to put in your holiday range, not the calendar date.

Private employers, banks and other countries set their own rules for this, and some holidays are not moved at all. The full set of patterns, including the UK's substitute bank holidays, is in observed holidays explained. The week number calendar helps when a deadline is given as a week rather than a date.

Before your next count, write down the start date, whether it counts, the weekend days and the holiday list, then run the numbers once in the date calculator and once by hand.

Frequently asked questions