Add Business Days to a Date

Excel & Google Sheets

How it works

WORKDAY starts at the date in A2 and steps forward 10 working days, silently hopping over every Saturday and Sunday it crosses. The start date itself doesn't count as day one — from Wednesday 8 July 2026, ten business days lands on Wednesday 22 July, two full weekends skipped. A negative count steps backwards, useful for "prepare 3 working days before the meeting." Like NETWORKDAYS, an optional third argument accepts a range of holiday dates to skip too. The result is a date serial number, so if you see a plain number like 46215, just format the cell as a date.

A2

The start date. It is not counted — counting begins the next working day.

10

Business days to add. Use a negative number to count backwards.

$D$2:$D$5 (optional)

Holiday dates to skip in addition to weekends.

When to use it

Use it to compute promised ship dates, "net 10 business days" payment deadlines, review-cycle due dates, or any SLA promise expressed in working days.

Common mistakes

• ✕Expecting the start date to count as day 1.

  ✓WORKDAY(A2,1) returns the *next* working day, not A2. If your policy counts the start day, use =WORKDAY(A2-1,10) — or just subtract 1 from the day count.

• ✕The result shows a number like 46215.

  ✓That's the date serial number — the formula worked. Format the cell as a date.

• ✕Company holidays are ignored.

  ✓WORKDAY only knows about weekends. List holidays in cells and pass them: =WORKDAY(A2,10,$D$2:$D$5).