Working Days Calculator
Counting working days by multiplying weeks by five is where the off-by-one lives: it goes wrong at both ends of the span and again at every holiday. This walks the days instead, one at a time, and then checks every day it counted against the calendar to confirm none of them was a weekend or a holiday after all.
What this generator does
Walks every day from the first date to the second, counting those that are neither a weekend nor a holiday, and reports the three counts separately so they can be seen to add up.
How to use this tool
- Enter the two dates. Both ends are included in the count.
- Choose which days count as the weekend.
- List any holidays to leave out, one per line.
- Read the total, with the weekends and holidays shown separately.
Understanding the controls
- From and to
- Both ends are included, so a Monday to the same Monday is one day. Spans of up to about ten years are allowed.
- Weekend
- Saturday and Sunday, Friday and Saturday, or Sunday alone — which covers most of the world's working weeks.
- Holidays
- Dates to leave out, one per line or separated by commas. A holiday falling at a weekend changes nothing, and is reported as such.
Common use cases
- Working out a delivery or notice period in working days
- Counting the days available in a project window
- Checking a contractual deadline expressed in business days
- Planning around a set of public holidays
- Counting days in a country whose weekend is not Saturday and Sunday
How this generator works
Two things are checked. The working, weekend and holiday counts must add up to the number of days in the span, so nothing can be counted twice or missed. And every day counted as a working day is looked at again — its weekday worked out from the date, and the date checked against the holiday list — so a day that should have been excluded cannot slip through.
Randomness and fairness
Nothing is random. The same dates and holidays always give the same count.
For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.
Limitations and good to know
- You supply the holidays; no country's list is built in, because they differ by nation and region and change from year to year.
- Whole days only, with no half days or part days.
- One weekend pattern for the whole span, so a change of working week partway through needs two calculations.
- Spans of about ten years at most.
Privacy and your data
Everything is counted in your browser. No dates are transmitted or stored.
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