Working Days Calculator
Count business days (Monday to Friday) between two dates — with optional federal or state holiday exclusion.
From 2026-01-05 to 2026-01-30 (inclusive) there are 20 working days — 6 weekend days, out of 26 total.
Results update as you type. Both endpoints are included in the count: Mon to Fri (same week) is 5 working days, not 4. Weekend = Saturday + Sunday; if your jurisdiction treats Friday + Saturday as the weekend, the count needs adjusting.
Formula
The calculator iterates each day in the inclusive range, counts weekdays (Mon–Fri), skips Saturday and Sunday, and subtracts any holiday dates you've listed. Both endpoints are counted: Mon to Fri (same week) is 5 working days, not 4. Weekend "holidays" are ignored — they're already excluded as weekend days.
When to use this calculator
Most American business commitments are measured in business days, not calendar days, so counting them by hand gets error-prone fast. Use this calculator whenever a deadline or term is framed that way — a vendor promising 'ships in 7 business days', a service-level agreement giving you '3 business days to respond', or HR confirming how many PTO days a trip will draw down.
It answers the practical questions: when a net-30-business-day invoice actually comes due, how many billable days a two-week engagement contains, or how much of your vacation balance a block of time off will cost. Because it skips Saturdays and Sundays and lets you paste in the federal or company holidays that apply, the number lines up with how working time is really counted on the job.
Reading your result
The result counts the weekdays in your range and includes both the start and end date. A Monday through Friday in the same week returns 5, not 4. If your situation uses the 'days between' convention — counting the elapsed gap rather than the days themselves — subtract one, or switch to the Days Between Dates Calculator, which uses that exclusive count by default.
Set it next to the calendar-day span and the weekend drag becomes clear: a typical month of 30 calendar days holds only about 21 or 22 working days, and each holiday you add subtracts one more. Over longer ranges the gap widens, which is why a deadline quoted in business days stretches well past what the raw date difference suggests.
A worked example
Say an order ships on Monday 01/05/2026 and the vendor quotes business days through 01/30/2026. That window spans 26 calendar days, but only 20 land on weekdays once the four weekends are removed. If a federal holiday such as Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls on a Monday inside the range, the count drops to 19. That working-day figure — not the 26-day calendar gap — is the honest delivery estimate to give a customer.
Mistakes to watch for
Most business-day errors trace back to holidays and to confusing the inclusive count with the exclusive one.
- Leaving holidays out of the box — the calculator only subtracts the dates you enter, so a midweek federal holiday you forget will inflate the count by a day.
- Assuming a universal Monday-to-Friday schedule — retail, healthcare, manufacturing and hospitality frequently do not run that way, and a five-day week under-counts their working time.
- Forgetting that observance differs — not every employer closes for all 11 federal holidays, and some states recognize holidays the federal calendar does not.
- Reading the result as a 'days between' number when it includes both endpoints; subtract one if your rule or contract counts the gap instead.
US federal and state holidays to watch
There are 11 federal holidays, but federal designation only guarantees closure for federal offices and many banks — private employers are free to observe some, all, or none. So two companies counting the 'same' range of business days can legitimately reach different totals depending on which holidays each one closes for.
Observance adds another wrinkle. When a holiday like Independence Day or New Year's Day falls on a weekend, the federal observed day shifts to the adjacent Friday or Monday, and that observed weekday is the one that removes a working day. States layer their own holidays on top — some recognize days the federal calendar omits entirely. Paste the specific dates your employer or jurisdiction observes into the holidays box so the count reflects the working days that actually apply to you.
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Frequently asked questions
Are both endpoints included?▾
Yes — Mon to Fri (same week) is 5 working days, both inclusive. The Days Between Dates Calculator uses the exclusive convention (Mon to Fri = 4 days); if you need that count, use that calculator instead or subtract 1.
Should I include federal holidays?▾
It's optional — paste them into the holidays box. There are 11 federal holidays per year (New Year's Day, MLK Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas). State holidays vary; some employers grant additional days off, others don't recognise all federal holidays.
What's the standard US working week?▾
Monday to Friday in most office work. Retail, hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing, and many service industries operate on different schedules. The Mon–Fri convention is the federal default (FLSA, court rules, government holidays) but doesn't capture every working schedule.
Are SCOTUS or court-rule deadlines counted differently?▾
Federal court rules (FRCP for civil, FRCrP for criminal) have specific definitions of 'business day' that exclude federal holidays and shift weekend deadlines forward. State courts have their own rules. For binding legal deadline calculations, defer to the relevant rule or attorney; this calculator gives the conventional Mon–Fri count plus your specified holidays.
Why are weekend 'holidays' ignored?▾
If you paste 4 July and it falls on a Saturday, the calculator doesn't count it twice — Saturday is already a weekend day. Some federal holidays observe an 'observed' Friday or Monday when the actual date falls on a weekend; if your context cares about that, paste the observed date instead.
Can I use this for PTO planning?▾
Yes — count working days between two dates, paste any company holidays into the holidays box, and the result is the working days you'd be using PTO for. Some companies count PTO in business days, some in calendar days; check your handbook.