BeginnerDate & Time
Count complete years of service with DATEDIF
Turn a start date and a review date into whole years, the way HR counts them.
DATEDIF
5 min15 points
DATEDIF practice exercises
Counts the complete years, months or days between two dates. Below is 1 interactive exercise that puts it to work on realistic business data — you write the formula, and get told exactly what went wrong when it does not work.
Syntax
DATEDIF(start_date, end_date, "Y" | "M" | "D")
Need a refresher? Learn DATEDIF — syntax, a worked example and where it goes wrong.
Practise DATEDIF
Ordered from most approachable to hardest.
When DATEDIF is the right tool
Counts the complete years, months or days between two dates. It belongs to the date & time family, and it shows up constantly in real work — which is why it is worth being genuinely fluent rather than merely familiar.
Before this one, it helps to be comfortable with DATE. The exercises below assume that ground is covered.
Reading about a function is not the same as being able to write it. The exercises on this page exist because the gap between recognising DATEDIF and producing it from memory, correctly, on data you have not seen before, only closes by doing it.
Related functions
Questions about DATEDIF
How do I practise DATEDIF without Excel installed?
Every exercise on this page runs in your browser. You type the DATEDIF formula into a real spreadsheet grid and get told immediately whether it works — no download, no account.
What does DATEDIF do?
Counts the complete years, months or days between two dates. The syntax is DATEDIF(start_date, end_date, "Y" | "M" | "D"). The exercises below put it to work on realistic business data rather than abstract examples.
How long does it take to learn DATEDIF?
Most people can write a working DATEDIF formula within twenty minutes of practice. Getting it right under pressure — with edge cases, unsorted data and ranges that must survive being filled down — is what the harder exercises here are for.