Business Days Calculator

What is a business days calculator?

A business days calculator counts the number of weekdays — Monday through Friday — between two dates, and separates them from Saturdays and Sundays. Enter a start date and an end date in the tool above, choose whether to include both endpoints, and it returns three numbers at once: business days, weekend days, and total days in the range. It is the fastest way to answer questions like “how many working days until the deadline?” or “how many business days were in last month?” without counting boxes on a calendar.

The word business day (also called a working day) means a standard Monday-to-Friday day. This tool treats every such day as one business day and every Saturday or Sunday as one weekend day, so the business count plus the weekend count always equals the total number of days in the range.

How does the business days calculator work?

The method is a direct day-by-day count rather than a formula on the calendar gap. The widget walks through every calendar day from the start date to the end date and classifies each one:

1. If the day is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, add 1 to business days.
2. If the day is Saturday or Sunday, add 1 to weekend days.
3. Add 1 to total days for every day either way.

The core rule is simply count Monday–Friday days in the date range. Because the tool inspects each real calendar date, it never has to estimate; leap years and months of different lengths are handled automatically just by stepping through the dates.

The include both ends toggle controls the endpoints. With it on, the start date and the end date are both counted, which is the inclusive convention spreadsheets use (the same idea as the NETWORKDAYS function). With it off, both endpoints are dropped and the totals fall accordingly. Units are whole days throughout — there are no fractional days, and time of day is ignored.

One deliberate choice: public holidays are not subtracted, because holidays differ by country, state and even company. The tool gives you a clean weekday count, and you subtract any local holidays yourself.

Examples

Every figure below matches the tool exactly. The anchor example is the full month of June 2026, which begins on a Monday (1 June 2026) and ends on a Tuesday (30 June 2026).

Example 1 — a full month, both ends included. Start 1 June 2026, end 30 June 2026, include both ends on. Stepping through all 30 days, 22 fall on weekdays and 8 fall on weekends. Result: 30 total days, 22 business days, 8 weekend days.

Example 2 — the same month with the endpoints excluded. Start 1 June 2026, end 30 June 2026, include both ends off. Both endpoints are weekdays (Monday the 1st and Tuesday the 30th), so dropping them removes two business days and two total days, while the weekend count is untouched. Result: 28 total days, 20 business days, 8 weekend days.

Example 3 — a single working week. Start 1 June 2026 (Monday), end 5 June 2026 (Friday), include both ends on. All five days are weekdays. Result: 5 total days, 5 business days, 0 weekend days.

Example 4 — a span that crosses one weekend. Start 5 June 2026 (Friday), end 8 June 2026 (Monday), include both ends on. The range covers Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Result: 4 total days, 2 business days, 2 weekend days.

Example 5 — two calendar weeks. Start 1 June 2026 (Monday), end 14 June 2026 (Sunday), include both ends on. Result: 14 total days, 10 business days, 4 weekend days — the round “10 working days in a fortnight” figure.

Start (incl.)	End (incl.)	Both ends	Total days	Business days	Weekend days
2026-06-01 (Mon)	2026-06-30 (Tue)	On	30	22	8
2026-06-01 (Mon)	2026-06-30 (Tue)	Off	28	20	8
2026-06-01 (Mon)	2026-06-05 (Fri)	On	5	5	0
2026-06-05 (Fri)	2026-06-08 (Mon)	On	4	2	2
2026-06-01 (Mon)	2026-06-14 (Sun)	On	14	10	4

A quick reference for common spans

The table below shows how many weekdays and weekend days sit inside fixed-length spans that begin on a Monday, with both ends counted. These are exact because any block of seven consecutive days always holds five weekdays and two weekend days.

Span (starts Monday)	Total days	Business days	Weekend days
1 week	7	5	2
2 weeks	14	10	4
3 weeks	21	15	6
4 weeks	28	20	8

If a span does not start on a Monday, the split shifts: the weekday total depends on which day of the week the range begins and ends on, which is exactly why a day-by-day count is more reliable than multiplying by five-sevenths.

What can you use it for?

Counting working days answers a lot of everyday planning questions:

• Project and delivery deadlines. Find how many working days remain before a launch, filing or “ships in 10 business days” promise.
• Payroll and timesheets. Count the weekdays in a pay period to estimate workable hours or salary accrual.
• Service-level agreements. SLAs and refund or returns windows are frequently written in business days, not calendar days.
• Leave and PTO planning. See how many working days a holiday actually consumes once weekends are removed.
• Onboarding and notice periods. Many contracts and probation windows are measured in weekdays.

Tips and common mistakes

• Decide on the endpoints first. The biggest source of off-by-one errors is whether both ends are counted. Use include both ends on for inclusive counts (the NETWORKDAYS convention) and off when you mean the gap between the dates.
• Remember holidays are not removed. A bank holiday that lands on a Tuesday still counts as a business day here; subtract local public holidays manually for an exact working-day figure.
• Do not multiply days by 5/7. That shortcut only works for whole weeks. For partial weeks it drifts, because the answer depends on which weekday the range starts and ends on.
• Order does not matter for the count, but check your inputs. A weekday count is the same regardless of which date you label start or end; the labels only matter for reading the result.
• Weekends are fixed at Saturday and Sunday. If your work week differs (for example Sunday-to-Thursday), this Monday-to-Friday definition will not match your calendar.

Limitations and notes

This calculator counts whole calendar days only — times of day, time zones and daylight-saving changes are not part of the math, so there are never fractional days. The weekend definition is fixed as Saturday and Sunday, and public holidays are intentionally excluded because they vary by country and region. For legally or financially significant deadlines, such as court filing windows, statutory notice periods or interest accrual, confirm the exact counting rule that applies, since some jurisdictions exclude specific holidays or define the business week differently.

For other date math, pair this with the date difference calculator for exact years, months and days, or the chronological age calculator for ages — and browse more options in the date-time tools category.