Count Working Days Between Two Dates
Choose a start and end date to count weekdays and business days in the selected period.
Working Days Calculator
Counts Monday–Friday as working days; public holidays aren't excluded.
A working days calculator counts only the weekdays between two dates, skipping weekends automatically — a more realistic way to plan anything tied to a business schedule than counting every calendar day.
What is a working days calculator, and how does it count business days?
It counts the Monday-through-Friday weekdays that fall between a start and end date, which is what most people mean by "business days" or "working days" — a standard five-day work week. Enter the start and end dates and it returns the count of weekdays automatically, without needing to manually cross off weekends on a calendar.
Which days count as the weekend, and does it exclude public holidays?
Saturday and Sunday are treated as the weekend — if your own work week runs differently, like Friday-Saturday, you'll need to subtract those extra non-working days manually. Public holidays aren't excluded automatically, since they vary too much by country and region to build in reliably; the calculation is mathematically exact for the Monday-to-Friday rule it uses, so factor in any known holidays yourself for a precise business-day count in your specific location.
Why do deadlines and contracts use working days instead of calendar days?
Because many business processes — contract reviews, deliveries, payment terms — only actually move forward on days people are working. A "5 business days" shipping estimate or contract deadline gives a far more realistic timeline than the same number of calendar days would, since it already accounts for the fact that nothing happens over the weekend.
Why is the work week five days long in the first place?
It's a surprisingly recent, deliberate invention. On May 1, 1926, Ford Motor Company — under Henry Ford, with the change championed by his son Edsel — became one of the first major American employers to move factory workers from a six-day week to a five-day, 40-hour week, after internal experiments convinced Ford that workers produced just as much in 40 hours as they had in 48. As the most influential industrialist of his era, Ford's move pushed other large companies to follow, but the 40-hour, five-day week didn't become the law of the land until the Fair Labor Standards Act, signed June 25, 1938, phased in a mandatory 40-hour work week nationwide by October 1940 — which is the same standard business-day rule this calculator still counts by today.
Is Working Days Calculator free to use?
Yes. Working Days Calculator is completely free, with no sign-up and no usage limits.
Do I need to install any software?
No. Working Days Calculator runs directly in your web browser — nothing to download or install.
Is my data kept private?
Everything happens on your device. We never receive or store the file or text you enter into Working Days Calculator.