Business Days Calculator

Our Business Days Calculator can help you determine the number of business days between dates. Just enter your information below, and our calculator will do the rest of the work.

How to Use our Business Days Calculator

1. Enter your start date. On the left side of the calculator, enter your start date. Enter the date manually, or click the red calendar button to select your date from a calendar interface. If you’d like to set the date to today, you can also click the ‘Today’s date’ shortcut button below the box.
2. Enter your end date. On the right side of the calculator, enter your end date, either by typing in the date manually, using the calendar button, or using the ‘Today’s date’ shortcut.
3. Choose the country whose holidays you would like to exclude. This business day calculator excludes weekends as well as holidays. Choose which country’s holidays you would like to exclude from our drop-down menu.
4. Decide if you’d like to include the end date in the calculation. Including the end date in your calculation will add one day to your calculation if the end date is a business day.
5. Click ‘calculate.’ Once you’ve entered all your information, click the red ‘calculate’ button.

What are Business Days?

Business days are the dates when business is generally conducted. Usually, these are weekdays from Monday through Friday, excluding any federal or banking holidays. There are usually around 250 working days in any given year, depending on how many weekdays there are and when federal holidays fall. What is considered a business day is thus determined by the federal government as well as the calendar, which means business days can vary from country to country. 

Business days are generally used to guide work-life balance. For many white-collar industries, it’s considered unusual to request employees work on non-business days, absent a pressing deadline. However, for other jobs, like retail or culinary jobs, business days don’t have as much meaning.

Often, businesses and vendors determine delivery dates of their products or services based on the number of business days elapsed. For instance, if you order a table online, they might estimate delivery will occur within 4-5 business days. Or business owners looking to hire contractors or freelancers might set deadlines based on business days, asking for a product within a certain range of days.

Considerations for Calculating International Business Days

Because business days are determined in part by federal holidays, what is considered a business day may vary from country to country. For instance, December 25th, Christmas, is a federal holiday in many countries, like the United States. But in other countries, like China, it’s considered a business day.

For business owners working with contractors in different countries, it’s important to lay down expectations about which business schedule you will be using. It’s also worth paying attention to the different cultural expectations surrounding work-week lengths and holiday time. The United States, for instance, is known to expect overtime from salaried employees, and does not give very generous leave or vacation time. However, in some European countries, like the U.K., almost six weeks of paid vacation time per year is considered standard. Contractors or freelancers working from these countries may thus be less likely to work overtime or more likely to expect accommodation for vacations. Though not a reason to look for workers elsewhere, this is worth considering when determining how quickly you can expect to get work finished.

Evolving Views on the Work Week

Once, the idea of working 9-5, five days a week was considered standard throughout the U.S. But over the years, attitudes about working have evolved. Employees have come to expect more flexible hours, and the standard work-week has had to shift to accommodate this change. Now, many workplaces allow employees to leave work early to pick up children, or to take half-days or full-days off each week, so long as they compensate for the loss in productivity by working longer hours on other days. A shift to more remote work has compounded this change, allowing employees to work on-and-off throughout the day.

Freelancers are more likely than other workers to have non-traditional work hours, since they set their own schedules. When hiring a freelancer, it’s good practice to inquire into their traditional work hours. That way, you can set expectations about when they will be available to work.

Feedback on the Days Between Business Days Calculator

What do you think about our Business Days Calculator? Did this tool help you figure out the days between dates? Are there other features you’d like to see added? We’d love to hear from you! Click the ‘feedback’ button to share your suggestions.If you're interested in other calculator tools, try our Time Calculator, which can help you determine the hours between times. We also have a Days Between Dates Calculator, to help you determine the total time between any two dates.