BeginnerDate & Time
Count working days to a deadline with NETWORKDAYS
Measure a project span in working days, not calendar days.
NETWORKDAYS
5 min15 points
NETWORKDAYS practice exercises
Counts the working days between two dates, skipping weekends and listed holidays. 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
NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays])
Need a refresher? Learn NETWORKDAYS — syntax, a worked example and where it goes wrong.
Practise NETWORKDAYS
Ordered from most approachable to hardest.
When NETWORKDAYS is the right tool
Counts the working days between two dates, skipping weekends and listed holidays. 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 NETWORKDAYS and producing it from memory, correctly, on data you have not seen before, only closes by doing it.
Related functions
Questions about NETWORKDAYS
How do I practise NETWORKDAYS without Excel installed?
Every exercise on this page runs in your browser. You type the NETWORKDAYS formula into a real spreadsheet grid and get told immediately whether it works — no download, no account.
What does NETWORKDAYS do?
Counts the working days between two dates, skipping weekends and listed holidays. The syntax is NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays]). The exercises below put it to work on realistic business data rather than abstract examples.
How long does it take to learn NETWORKDAYS?
Most people can write a working NETWORKDAYS 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.