Dates
Business Days Calculator
Count working days between two dates, excluding weekends and holidays.
Business Days Calculator
Enter an end date above to see the result
Counting "working days" between two dates means deciding what a weekend even is — and that's not a universal constant: while Saturday-Sunday is the standard assumption in much of the world, several countries (including much of the Middle East) instead treat Friday-Saturday as the weekend, which this tool lets you set explicitly rather than assuming one default everywhere.
Contract deadlines, notice periods, and shipping estimates are the most common real uses for this tool, and in every one of these contexts, an off-by-one error caused by an unstated weekend or holiday assumption can carry real financial or legal consequences — which is exactly why this tool states its assumptions explicitly rather than leaving them implicit.
How the Business Days Calculator works
The tool walks every calendar day in the range and excludes whichever two days you've set as the weekend, then optionally also excludes the fixed-date public holidays for a chosen country pulled from this site's per-country holiday tables — deliberately excluding movable holidays (Easter-linked, lunar-calendar) from that automatic subtraction, since a static table can't safely represent a date that shifts every year.
This tool and the Add Business Days Calculator share the exact same weekend-definition and country-holiday-table settings under the hood, so switching the weekend convention or selected country on one carries the same real-world meaning as doing so on the other, even though the two tools solve the reverse of each other's problem.
Worked example
From Monday, July 13, 2026 to Friday, July 24, 2026 (12 calendar days inclusive of both ends): one full weekend (Saturday the 18th and Sunday the 19th) falls entirely inside that range, leaving 12 − 2 = 10 business days.
Edge cases this tool handles correctly
- Weekend definition varies by country
- Most of the world uses Saturday-Sunday, but several Middle Eastern countries use Friday-Saturday instead — this is genuine regional variation, not an edge case with one universally correct default, so the tool lets the weekend definition be changed.
- Public holidays that fall on a weekend
- A fixed-date holiday landing on a Saturday doesn't automatically subtract an extra weekday from the count unless a specific "day in lieu" rule applies — those rules vary by country and even by individual employer, so this tool doesn't assume one automatically.
- Movable holidays aren't in the automatic table
- Easter-linked and lunar-calendar holidays shift every year and are deliberately left out of the fixed-date holiday table this tool references, so business-day counts near those dates should be treated as a lower bound unless adjusted manually.
- A range shorter than one weekend
- A range of just a few calendar days may contain zero, one, or two weekend days depending on exactly which weekdays it starts and ends on — the count isn't a simple fraction of the total days, since it depends on the specific starting weekday.
- Ranges spanning a full calendar year or more
- Longer ranges are walked the same day-by-day way as short ones; the calculation doesn't switch to an approximation for longer spans, so a year-plus range is exactly as precise as a one-week range.
- Comparing two different countries' holiday calendars for the same date range
- The same fixed date range can return a different business-day total depending on which country's holiday table is selected, since public holidays are genuinely country-specific — this is expected, real variation rather than an inconsistency in the calculation.
Frequently asked questions
Does it include public holidays automatically?
Optionally, using the selected country's fixed-date public holiday table; movable holidays like Easter Monday or Lunar New Year aren't included since their dates shift every year.
Why does the same date range give a different business-day count for two different countries?
Because each country's selected fixed-date public holidays differ genuinely — a range that includes a country-specific holiday for one selection but not another will correctly return two different totals.
What if my country's weekend isn't Saturday-Sunday?
The weekend definition is adjustable — several countries, including much of the Middle East, use Friday-Saturday instead.
Does a holiday on a weekend count as a lost business day?
Not automatically — "in lieu" day rules differ by country and employer and aren't assumed by this tool.
Is the result exact for every country and every year?
It's exact for the fixed-date holidays in the table as of the source date noted on each country's Holidays page; movable holidays require manual adjustment.
Does a very short date range still work correctly?
Yes — even a range of just a few days is walked day by day, so the business-day count is exact regardless of how short the span is.
Can I exclude custom dates beyond the standard holiday list?
The tool's automatic exclusions are limited to weekends and the selected country's fixed-date holiday table; a custom company closure date would need to be accounted for manually.