Business Days Calculator

A business day is typically Monday through Friday, excluding weekends. This calculator walks the calendar from the start date through the end date and counts weekdays only. If you swap the dates, the count stays the same.

Public holidays are not excluded — banks and offices in different countries observe different holidays. For a specific jurisdiction, subtract holidays manually or use a holiday-aware calendar.

Example: from Monday, July 27, 2026 to Friday, July 31, 2026 is 5 business days. From Friday, July 31 to the following Monday, August 3 is 2 business days (Friday and Monday).

Inclusive counting is the detail that trips up deadlines. This tool counts both endpoints when they are weekdays, so Monday to Friday is 5. Many contracts instead mean elapsed business days from the day after an event, which would make the same span 4. Read the clause before trusting either number.

“Business day” is defined by the agreement, not by the calendar. Banking rules often tie it to when the institution is open for substantially all business; shipping carriers exclude Saturday for ground service but not for some express products; and many software SLAs define their own working window in the contract. Two parties can count the same span differently and both be right.

Holidays are excluded from this count and there is no universal list to apply. The US has 11 federal holidays, but those bind federal offices rather than private employers, and markets, banks, and couriers each keep their own calendar. Subtract the specific closures that apply to your counterparty rather than a generic national list.

Cross-border deadlines need two counts, not one. A five-business-day turnaround between a US and a German team can differ by two or three days in practice, because the holidays do not overlap and a date that is a working day in one country is a closure in the other. Count each side separately and use the later date.

Work weeks are not universal either. Some Gulf-state organisations run Sunday to Thursday, parts of the retail and hospitality world treat Saturday as an ordinary working day, and half-day closures before major holidays are common. If your contract defines business days differently from Monday to Friday, adjust the result manually.

Partial workdays (half-day holidays) are not modeled — when your office closes early, subtract manual buffer or count the following morning as unavailable for SLA math.

International teams may observe different public holidays — run separate counts per country when SLAs cross borders.

Weekend-only teams may treat Saturday as a workday — toggle holiday lists to match your contract definition of business days.