Business Days in Excel & Google Sheets (With Holidays)

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.

Who should use this workflow?

This approach is a good fit if you regularly need to turn dates into real delivery or deadline dates in a spreadsheet. It works especially well for:

• Operations teams that need a repeatable way to calculate lead times.
• Finance teams that track settlement windows and payment terms.
• HR teams that manage notice periods or onboarding dates.
• Project managers that want a single calendar rule across teams.

Quick checklist before you trust a formula

1. Confirm that the start and end cells are true dates.
2. Check whether Saturdays count as workdays in your process.
3. Verify the holiday range includes the correct year.
4. Decide whether the rule should include the start date or start counting the next business day.
5. Test one known example before rolling the formula into a live sheet.

Mini FAQ

Can I count business days backward?

Yes. In both Excel and Google Sheets, you can use a negative number in WORKDAY to go backward from a reference date.

What if my country has regional holidays?

Use a holiday list that matches the exact region you care about. National calendars are a good start, but they are not always enough for local operations.

Is it better to use a spreadsheet or a calculator?

Use the spreadsheet if you need a reusable model or reporting. Use the calculator if you need a quick, verified result without maintaining holiday lists by hand.

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.