Business Days Calculator
Count business days with custom weekend days and a holiday exclusion list. Free calculator for finance, legal, and shipping timelines in your browser.
Business-day counting sits at the intersection of civil calendars and institutional policy. Two companies can look at the same date range and disagree on the count because one treats the Friday after Thanksgiving as closed while another works through it. This calculator separates the mechanics from the policy: you define which weekdays are non-working via weekend checkboxes, then supply an explicit holiday list rather than guessing a national set that may not match your entity. That design suits multinational teams where UAE weekend days differ from US norms, and project offices that maintain their own floating holidays. Inclusive end-day mode aligns with legal language that counts the filing day itself when it is a business day. For simple Monday-Friday counts without holidays, the working days calculator is faster; reach for this one when holiday omission is non-negotiable. Always audit pasted holidays for typos-a single malformed line is skipped with a warning in the detail panel when parsing fails.
How to Use
- Enter start and end dates for the period.
- Check which days count as weekend non-working days.
- Paste holidays one per line in YYYY-MM-DD format.
- Enable Include end day if your policy counts the last date.
- Click Count business days and review skipped holiday tally.
- Copy the result into contracts, finance sheets, or tickets.
Input Field Guide
- Start date
- Beginning of the range to evaluate.
- End date
- End of the range. Holidays and weekends inside are excluded.
- Weekend days
- Check Saturday and/or Sunday, or adjust for regions with different weekend patterns.
- Holidays
- One ISO date per line. Each listed day is excluded if it would otherwise be a business day.
- Include end day
- Counts the end date when it is a business day and inclusive mode applies.
Understanding Your Results
The headline is the business-day count after removing configured weekends and listed holidays. Details may list how many holidays were skipped and contrast with raw calendar days for audit.
Features
- Custom weekend day selection
- Pasteable holiday exclusion list
- Inclusive end-day option
- Holiday parse with invalid-line feedback
- Copy and share results
- Fully local computation
Formula & Calculation Logic
Count days in range where weekday ∉ weekendSet and date ∉ holidaySet, adjusting +1 for inclusive end when applicable.
Real-World Use Cases
- Finance settlement and T+N business-day windows
- Legal notice periods with court holidays
- Corporate PTO and office closure planning
- Regional shipping SLA validation
- Procurement delivery business-day terms
Practical Examples
Mon 22 Dec-Wed 31 Dec 2026 excluding Sat-Sun and 25 Dec -> business days without Christmas.
Uncheck Sunday, check Saturday only, to model regions with Friday-Saturday weekends.
Benefits
- Matches spreadsheet NETWORKDAYS with explicit holidays
- Adaptable weekend pattern
- No holiday data uploaded to servers
- Transparent skipped-day details
Tips & Best Practices
- Maintain a master holiday text file and paste each calculation.
- Use working days calculator when no holidays apply.
- Validate ISO date format to avoid silent skips.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Leaving default US holidays assumed-this tool only excludes what you list.
- Using MM/DD/YYYY in the holiday box instead of YYYY-MM-DD.
- Forgetting to include observed Monday holidays when courts close.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I format the holiday list?
One date per line as YYYY-MM-DD, e.g., 2026-12-25.
Can I exclude only Saturday as weekend?
Yes. Uncheck Sunday and check only the days that are non-working in your region.
What if a holiday falls on Saturday?
It is already excluded by weekend rules; listing it again has no extra effect.
How is this different from working days calculator?
Business days adds configurable weekends plus an explicit holiday list.
Does inclusive mode add holidays back?
No. It only affects whether the end date counts when it is a business day.
Are federal holidays built in?
No. Paste the holidays that apply to your organization or jurisdiction.
What happens with invalid holiday lines?
Invalid lines are ignored; details may note parse issues.
Is my holiday list stored?
No. It exists only in your browser session for the calculation.