Excel Date Functions: The Complete Guide

How Excel stores dates

Excel stores dates as serial numbers — 1 January 1900 is 1, 1 January 2026 is 46023. This means you can do arithmetic on dates: subtracting two dates gives the number of days between them, and adding a number to a date gives a future date.

Essential date functions

TODAY and NOW

=TODAY()      returns today's date (updates every day)
=NOW()        returns current date and time

DATE — build a date from parts

=DATE(year, month, day)
=DATE(2026, 12, 31)     31 December 2026
=DATE(YEAR(A2), MONTH(A2)+1, 1)-1    last day of the same month as A2

YEAR, MONTH, DAY — extract parts of a date

=YEAR(A2)     extract the year
=MONTH(A2)    extract the month number (1-12)
=DAY(A2)      extract the day number

DATEDIF — difference between two dates

=DATEDIF(start, end, "Y")   complete years
=DATEDIF(start, end, "M")   complete months
=DATEDIF(start, end, "D")   total days

NETWORKDAYS — working days between two dates

=NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date)
=NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, holidays_range)
-- Excludes weekends and optional public holidays

WORKDAY — a date N working days from a start date

=WORKDAY(start_date, days)
=WORKDAY(TODAY(), 30)    30 working days from today

EDATE — add months to a date

=EDATE(start_date, months)
=EDATE(B2, 6)    6 months after the date in B2
=EDATE(B2, -3)   3 months before the date in B2

EOMONTH — last day of a month

=EOMONTH(date, months_offset)
=EOMONTH(TODAY(), 0)    last day of the current month
=EOMONTH(TODAY(), 1)    last day of next month

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Excel date functionsthe complete guide