Business Days Calculator
Calculate business days between two dates, excluding weekends (Saturday and Sunday). Perfect for project planning, deadline calculations, SLA tracking, and working day calculations.
When enabled, both start and end dates are included. When disabled, only days between (not including end date) are counted.
Select start and end dates to calculate business days
Table of Contents
What are Business Days?
**Business days** (also called working days) are days when businesses and offices are typically open for operations. In most countries, business days exclude weekends (Saturday and Sunday) and are typically Monday through Friday.
Business days are essential for calculating deadlines, project timelines, SLA (Service Level Agreement) tracking, delivery estimates, and any time-based calculations that need to account for when work is actually performed.
Our Business Days Calculator excludes weekends (Saturday and Sunday) from calculations, giving you an accurate count of working days between two dates. This is perfect for project planning, deadline tracking, and understanding how many actual working days are available.
How it Works
Our Business Days Calculator calculates the number of business days between two dates:
- Select Dates: Choose a start date and end date using the date pickers
- Weekend Exclusion: The calculator automatically excludes Saturdays and Sundays from the count
- Include/Exclude End Date: Choose whether to include the end date in the calculation
- Instant Results: Get business days count, calendar days count, and other statistics immediately
- Quick Actions: Use "Today" buttons to quickly set current date
The calculator counts all days from the start date to the end date, excluding weekends. It also shows the total calendar days for comparison, helping you understand the difference between business days and calendar days.
Common Use Cases
- Project Planning: Calculate how many working days are available for project timelines and milestones
- Deadline Calculations: Determine delivery dates and deadlines based on business days
- SLA Tracking: Calculate service level agreement timelines and response times
- Leave Planning: Calculate how many business days a vacation or leave period includes
- Delivery Estimates: Estimate delivery times for services and products based on business days
- Invoice Due Dates: Calculate payment due dates based on business days from invoice date
- Contract Terms: Understand timeframes in contracts that specify business days
- Work Schedule Planning: Plan work schedules and resource allocation based on business days
- Compliance Deadlines: Track regulatory and compliance deadlines that use business days
- Task Duration Estimation: Estimate how long tasks will take in business days
Examples
Example 1: Project Timeline
Scenario: A project starts on Monday, January 1, 2026 and ends on Friday, January 15, 2026 (inclusive).
- Calendar Days: 15 days (includes weekends)
- Business Days: 11 days (excludes 2 weekends: 4 days)
- Weekends Excluded: 4 days
This gives you 11 working days to complete the project, not 15 calendar days.
Example 2: Delivery Estimate
Scenario: An order is placed on Friday, January 5, 2026 and has a 5 business day processing time.
- Start: Friday, January 5 (Day 1 of processing)
- Saturday & Sunday: Excluded (not business days)
- Monday-Friday: Days 2-6 of processing
- Delivery Date: Thursday, January 11 (5 business days later)
The delivery takes 7 calendar days but only 5 business days.
Example 3: Vacation Planning
Scenario: You're taking vacation from Monday, March 1, 2026 to Friday, March 12, 2026 (inclusive).
- Calendar Days: 12 days
- Business Days: 10 days (excludes 1 weekend: 2 days)
- Vacation Days Used: 10 business days
You'll use 10 vacation days from your leave balance, not 12.
Frequently Asked Questions
Our calculator excludes weekends (Saturday and Sunday) from business day calculations. This is the standard definition of business days in most countries. The calculator does not exclude holidays by default — if you need holiday exclusion, you would need to account for that separately.
No, the calculator does not exclude holidays. It only excludes weekends (Saturday and Sunday). If you need to exclude holidays, you would need to account for them manually or use a more specialized tool that includes holiday calendars. Holidays vary by country and region, so we focus on the universal weekend exclusion.
Include end date: Both the start date and end date are counted. For example, from Monday to Friday (inclusive) = 5 business days.
Exclude end date: Only days between the dates are counted, not including the end date. For example, from Monday to Friday (exclusive) = 4 business days (Monday through Thursday).
The choice depends on your use case — for example, if calculating a deadline, you might want to include the end date. If calculating days between events, you might exclude it.
Yes! The calculator works for any dates, whether in the past, present, or future. You can calculate business days between any two dates, regardless of when they occur.
If the start date or end date falls on a weekend and you have "include end date" enabled, that weekend day is still excluded from business days. Business days only count weekdays (Monday-Friday). If you need to include a weekend day, you would need to adjust your dates to the nearest weekday.
The calculator is 100% accurate for weekend exclusion. It correctly identifies Saturdays and Sundays and excludes them from the count. The calculation uses JavaScript's Date object and accounts for all calendar days accurately.
The calculator uses the standard definition of business days (Monday-Friday, excluding weekends). This is the most common definition worldwide. However, some countries or regions may have different work weeks (e.g., Sunday-Thursday in some Middle Eastern countries). The calculator currently uses the standard Monday-Friday work week.
Yes! If you set the start date and end date to the same day, the calculator will return:
- If include end date: 1 business day if it's a weekday, 0 if it's a weekend
- If exclude end date: 0 business days