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
Counts the working days between two dates, skipping weekends and listed holidays.
Syntax
NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays])
Date & Time.
Practise NETWORKDAYS1 interactive exercise, free, no account needed
A worked example
=NETWORKDAYS(B2,C2)
Returns 15 for Monday 5 Oct to Friday 23 Oct 2026
Counts the weekdays between two dates, both ends included, and skips any holidays you list in a third argument.
Where it goes wrong
Both ends count, so a Monday-to-Friday week is 5, not 4. A start date after the end date gives a negative count rather than an error, which is how swapped dates show up.
What the exercises catch
Each of these is a wrong turn the practice exercises recognise and name. They are the misconceptions, not the answers.
- That is 18 calendar days, which includes two weekends nobody is on site for, and it leaves out the start day itself. The plan needs the days people will actually work.Count working days to a deadline with NETWORKDAYS
Practise NETWORKDAYS
Knowing what a function does and being able to write it from memory are different skills. These close the gap.
All NETWORKDAYS practice exercises →