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NETWORKDAYS

Dates

Count working days between two dates — the unit aging, SLAs and close calendars are actually measured in.

Difficulty

Amateur

Excel file

1What is it?

An invoice that's 10 days overdue over a long weekend is 6 working days overdue, and those are different conversations. NETWORKDAYS counts the days between two dates excluding weekends, and excluding any holiday list you hand it. Both ends are inclusive, which is the part people get wrong: the same date twice returns 1, not 0. NETWORKDAYS.INTL takes an extra argument for a working week that isn't Monday to Friday — a weekend string like "0000011", or one of Excel's numbered patterns.

2What it looks like

NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays])   ·   NETWORKDAYS.INTL(start, end, [weekend], [holidays])

start_date: The first day, counted.
end_date: The last day, also counted. Earlier than the start is allowed and returns a negative.
[holidays]: A range of dates to skip. A holiday landing on a weekend isn't double-counted.
[weekend] (.INTL only): Which days are the weekend — 1 = Sat/Sun, 7 = Fri/Sat, or a 7-character string of 0s and 1s starting Monday.

3When you use it

Age receivables in working days, so a weekend doesn't inflate the number.
Measure a close calendar or an SLA the way it was actually agreed.
Count working days left in a month for a run-rate.

4See it in action

Change the inputs — the formula and result update live. Prefer the real thing? Download the Excel file and open it in Excel.

Aging is spoken in working days. Move the dates and watch the two numbers diverge.

=NETWORKDAYS(B1, B2, Holidays)Calendar days (both ends counted): 30

	A
1	Result
2	Calendar days (both ends counted): 30
3	Minus weekends: 22
4	Minus 1 holiday(s): 21

The lime cell holds the formula — click it (or any cell) to see its contents in the bar above, just like Excel. Edit the blue cells to watch it recompute.

Start date

End date

Holidays in the span

5Common errors

Answer is one higher than expectedBoth ends are inclusive by design.

Fix: Subtract 1 if you want elapsed days between rather than days spanned.

#VALUE!A date arrived as text Excel couldn't parse, or the holidays range holds text.

Fix: Convert with DATEVALUE first, and make sure the holiday list is real dates.

#NUM! (.INTL only)The weekend string isn't 7 characters, or is all 1s.

Fix: Seven digits, Monday first, and at least one working day.

Holidays ignoredThe list sits outside the two dates, or it's a text range.

Fix: Only holidays inside the span count — that's correct behaviour, not a bug.

6Better functions & alternatives

WORKDAY — The inverse: start from a date and count forward a number of working days.
DAYS — Plain calendar days, when the weekend genuinely doesn't matter.

Want NETWORKDAYS already wired into a model? Wauvel's free tools download as branded, formula-driven Excel.

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