Business Days Calculator (US, Canada, UK, Australia)

About this tool

This business days calculator counts the working days between two dates, or finds the date a given number of business days before or after a start date. It skips Saturdays, Sundays and the public holidays of the region you choose: US federal holidays, Canadian federal general holidays, bank holidays in England and Wales, or Australia's national public holidays. Each holiday it removes is listed by name and date, and you can add your own days off. Everything is calculated in your browser.

How to use it

1. Pick the holidays to skip. Choose a country, or None to skip weekends only.
2. Count or add. To count, enter a start and end date and decide whether each end of the range counts. To find a deadline, switch to Add or subtract business days, pick a starting date and enter the number of business days.
3. Add custom holidays if your office also closes on other days, such as a state holiday or the day after Thanksgiving. Type one date per line as 2026-11-27, with an optional name after it.
4. Press Calculate. The breakdown shows calendar days, weekend days, holidays that fell on weekdays, and business days, followed by a table of every holiday removed.

How the count works

For a count, the tool walks through each date in the range. Saturdays and Sundays are weekend days. A weekday that is a holiday, or an observed or substitute day for one, is removed. Everything else is a business day:

business days = calendar days - weekend days - weekday holidays

By default both the start and end date count, the same convention as the spreadsheet function NETWORKDAYS, whose documented example gives 110 workdays from Monday, October 1, 2012 to Friday, March 1, 2013. Untick either box to leave that end out. When you add business days, the start date itself is not counted: one business day after a Friday is the following Monday, which is how the WORKDAY function behaves.

Holiday rules by country

• United States. The 11 legal public holidays in 5 U.S.C. 6103, including Juneteenth on June 19. Following OPM, a holiday on Saturday is observed on the Friday before and one on Sunday on the Monday after. That can move a holiday into the previous year: New Year's Day 2028 is a Saturday, so Friday, December 31, 2027 is the day off.
• Canada. The ten general holidays in section 166 of the Canada Labour Code, which apply to federally regulated workplaces. Victoria Day is the Monday before May 25 and Thanksgiving the second Monday in October. When one of six fixed-date holidays falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the Code gives the working day immediately before or after it instead. This tool uses the day after, so check which one your employer uses.
• England and Wales. Eight bank holidays, generated by rule and matching the list on GOV.UK for 2024 to 2028. A weekend holiday moves to the next weekday, so when Christmas Day is a Saturday, Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 December are both bank holidays.
• Australia. Only days that are public holidays in all eight states and territories, checked against the Fair Work Ombudsman lists and the state and territory holiday Acts: New Year's Day, Australia Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, with the extra Monday or Tuesday every state gives when New Year's Day, Christmas or Boxing Day falls on a weekend. Australia Day on a weekend moves to the Monday.

Easter-based dates use the Gregorian computus, the standard arithmetic for the date of Easter Sunday. Good Friday is two days before it and Easter Monday the day after.

What is not included

State, provincial, territorial and regional holidays are not included, and the UK option covers England and Wales only: Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own bank holidays. In Canada, Easter Monday, the Civic Holiday and Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day (Quebec) are not general holidays under the Code, though many employers give them. In Australia, King's Birthday is a holiday everywhere but on different dates, so it is left out with Labour Day, Melbourne Cup and similar days. One-off holidays declared by proclamation or executive order are not predicted either. Add any of these in the custom holidays box. Holiday rules are applied from 2024 to 2099; with None, any date from 1900 works.

Worked example

The calculator opens on the United States, counting from Monday, November 2, 2026 to Thursday, December 31, 2026 with both dates included. That range has 60 calendar days, of which 16 are Saturdays or Sundays. Three federal holidays fall on weekdays: Veterans Day (Wednesday, November 11), Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 26) and Christmas Day (Friday, December 25). So the answer is 60 - 16 - 3 = 41 business days. Untick Include the start date and it drops to 40. With England and Wales selected it is 42, because the UK has no November holidays but adds Monday, December 28 as the Boxing Day substitute.

In add mode the default is 10 business days after Friday, December 18, 2026. Skipping Christmas Day and New Year's Day, the answer is Tuesday, January 5, 2027. Subtracting 10 business days from the same date gives Friday, December 4, 2026.

Common mistakes

• Counting the start day twice. "Within 5 business days of Monday" usually means the following Monday, not Friday. Check whether your rule counts the first day.
• Assuming bank holidays match federal holidays. The Federal Reserve notes that its Banks stay open on the Friday before a Saturday holiday, such as July 3, 2026, even though federal offices close.
• Forgetting observed days. Christmas Day 2027 is a Saturday, so the weekday lost is Friday, December 24 in the US and Monday, December 27 in the UK, Canada and Australia.
• Using a plain weekday count. The Date Calculator counts Monday to Friday but leaves holidays in, so its weekday total for the example range is 44, not 41.

Use cases

• Working out payment terms, delivery estimates and notice periods stated in business days.
• Comparing working days in a month or year across US, Canadian, UK and Australian offices.
• Planning a project schedule around holidays, then tracking it with the Countdown to a Date tool.

Court and statutory deadlines often have their own counting rules, so treat this as a calculator, not legal advice.