When scheduling a project, calculating a shipping deadline, or figuring out a legal timeframe, you often need to count business days (working days) rather than calendar days. Here is how it works.
The Challenge of Working Days
A calendar day is any day of the week, including weekends. A business day typically only includes Monday through Friday. If an invoice says "net 30 days," it usually means calendar days. But if a shipment takes "3 to 5 business days," you have to skip the weekends.
Subtracting Weekends
To calculate business days mathematically:
- Find the total number of calendar days between your start and end date.
- Divide that number by 7 to find the number of full weeks.
- Multiply the full weeks by 2 to get the total weekend days.
- Subtract the weekend days from your original total.
- Manually check the remainder days to see if they span across a weekend.
Need an Exact Answer?
Skip the manual math and use our calculator to instantly find the exact number of business days, including options to exclude custom holidays.
Open Business Days CalculatorHandling Public Holidays
Don't forget about public holidays! Bank holidays and national holidays do not count as business days. Because holidays vary by country and region, manual calculations require you to look up a local calendar and manually subtract any holidays that fall within your timeframe.