Spreadsheets are great for planning — until you need business days instead of calendar days. The moment you must exclude weekends and public holidays, manual counting becomes error-prone.
In this guide you’ll learn the practical Excel and Google Sheets formulas to:
- Count business days between two dates
- Add N business days to a start date
- Exclude a custom holiday list
- Handle different weekend rules
1) Count business days between two dates
Excel
Use NETWORKDAYS:
=NETWORKDAYS(A2, B2)
If you have a holiday list (one date per row), e.g. H2:H40:
=NETWORKDAYS(A2, B2, $H$2:$H$40)
Google Sheets
Sheets supports the same function:
=NETWORKDAYS(A2, B2, $H$2:$H$40)
Tip: Keep your holiday list as real date values (not text). If formulas “don’t work”, the most common cause is that holidays are stored as strings.
2) Add N business days to a date
Excel
Use WORKDAY:
=WORKDAY(A2, C2)
With holidays:
=WORKDAY(A2, C2, $H$2:$H$40)
Google Sheets
=WORKDAY(A2, C2, $H$2:$H$40)
This is perfect for “start date + lead time” planning (shipping, procurement, SLAs, HR timelines).
3) Custom weekend rules (e.g., Friday–Saturday weekends)
When your weekend is not Saturday–Sunday, use the “.INTL” versions:
Excel
=NETWORKDAYS.INTL(A2, B2, "0000011", $H$2:$H$40)
The weekend code tells Excel which days are weekends (1 = weekend). In the example above, the last two days are weekends. Excel also supports numeric weekend codes; use the one that matches your region/industry.
Google Sheets
=NETWORKDAYS.INTL(A2, B2, "0000011", $H$2:$H$40)
4) A safer workflow: spreadsheet + verified holiday source
Spreadsheets are only as accurate as your holiday list. For international work, maintaining holiday lists across countries and years is the hard part.
If you need quick, country-aware results (and a list of skipped holidays), use our calculator and then paste results back into your sheet for tracking.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Mixed date formats: ensure all inputs are real dates.
- Wrong timezone conversions: importing dates from APIs can shift days.
- Incomplete holiday lists: many countries have regional holidays.
- Industry exceptions: some teams treat Saturdays as working days.
Conclusion
With NETWORKDAYS / WORKDAY (and their .INTL variants), you can make Excel/Sheets handle business days reliably — as long as your holiday list is correct.