How to Add Business Days in Excel, Skipping Weekends and Holidays

The workday function (WORKDAY), written =WORKDAY(start_date, days, holidays), adds business days to a date and, per Microsoft Support’s WORKDAY page, skips Saturdays, Sundays and any dates you list as holidays. Starting Monday, Jan. 4, 2027, adding 90 business days returns Monday, May 10 with no holiday list and Wednesday, May 12 with the 11 federal observed dates from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Those results are our calculation. This guide gives the formula, a paste-ready 2027 holiday range, a weekend-code table and the differences in Google Sheets.

How does the WORKDAY formula add business days in Excel?

Microsoft gives the syntax as WORKDAY(start_date, days, [holidays]). The first two arguments are required and the holiday list is optional. Microsoft says working days exclude weekends and any dates identified as holidays, and that a negative value yields a past date.

A basic version, with a start date in cell A1 and a day count in B1:

=WORKDAY(A1, B1)

To type the date inside the formula, use the date function (DATE) so Excel reads it correctly: =WORKDAY(DATE(2027,1,4), 90). Microsoft explains that Excel stores dates as sequential serial numbers, and that dates should be entered by using the DATE function or as results of other formulas or functions. A date typed as plain text can return an error.

Microsoft lists two errors. If any argument is not a valid date, WORKDAY returns the value error (VALUE), shown as #VALUE!. If start_date plus days yields an invalid date, it returns the number error (NUM), shown as #NUM!.

How do I skip holidays with WORKDAY?

Put each holiday in its own cell, then pass that range as the third argument. Microsoft’s own example starts on 10/1/2008, adds 151 days and gets 4/30/2009; with holidays on 11/26/2008, 12/4/2008 and 1/21/2009 the result is 5/5/2009.

For 2027, the observed federal dates from OPM are below. OPM’s page says that if a holiday falls on a Saturday, for most federal employees the preceding Friday is treated as a holiday for pay and leave purposes. That is why Juneteenth, a Saturday in 2027, shows as Friday, June 18.

Observed date, 2027	Day
Jan. 1	Fri.
Jan. 18	Mon.
Feb. 15	Mon.
May 31	Mon.
June 18 (Juneteenth observed)	Fri.
July 5 (Independence Day observed)	Mon.
Sept. 6	Mon.
Oct. 11	Mon.
Nov. 11	Thu.
Nov. 25	Thu.
Dec. 24 (Christmas observed)	Fri.

Enter them in cells A2 to A12 as =DATE(2027,1,1), =DATE(2027,1,18) and so on down to =DATE(2027,12,24). Then use the range:

=WORKDAY(DATE(2027,1,4), 90, A2:A12)

If your employer, school or contract uses another list, replace the 11 dates; the function only knows the dates you give it. OPM’s observed dates also move with the year, so a range built for 2027 should not be reused for 2028. For the full list and the reasons for each shift, see federal holidays in 2027.

What does WORKDAY return from Jan. 4, 2027?

We computed four results from Monday, Jan. 4, 2027 with a Saturday-Sunday weekend, once with no holidays and once with the 11 dates above.

Business days added	No holidays	With the 2027 holiday list
10	Mon., Jan. 18	Tue., Jan. 19
30	Mon., Feb. 15	Wed., Feb. 17
60	Mon., March 29	Wed., March 31
90	Mon., May 10	Wed., May 12

The holiday list adds one day to the 10-day result because Jan. 18 is on the list, and two days to the later results. Check your own sheet against these four rows before you rely on a longer formula.

To count the other way, Microsoft’s network days function (NETWORKDAYS), written NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays]), returns the number of whole working days between two dates. As our worked example, NETWORKDAYS(DATE(2027,1,4), DATE(2027,1,8)) returns 5, Monday through Friday, so both end dates are counted. The same counting idea is behind how many business days are in a year: 2027 has 261 weekdays, and 250 of them are not one of the 11 dates above, by our count. Our month-by-month 2027 working days story shows 249 federal working days because it also counts Friday, Dec. 31, 2027, the observed date for New Year’s Day 2028.

Which weekend codes can WORKDAY change for a Friday-Saturday week?

When your week is not Saturday and Sunday, use the international version (INTL), WORKDAY.INTL(start_date, days, [weekend], [holidays]). Microsoft’s weekend codes are:

Code	Weekend days
1 or omitted	Saturday, Sunday
2	Sunday, Monday
3	Monday, Tuesday
4	Tuesday, Wednesday
5	Wednesday, Thursday
6	Thursday, Friday
7	Friday, Saturday
11	Sunday only
12	Monday only
13	Tuesday only
14	Wednesday only
15	Thursday only
16	Friday only
17	Saturday only

Instead of a code you can give a weekend string. Microsoft says weekend string values are seven characters long, and that 0000011 gives a Saturday-Sunday weekend; the string starts on Monday. For a Friday-Saturday weekend, =WORKDAY.INTL(DATE(2027,1,4), 90, 7, A2:A12) uses code 7, and the matching string is 0000110. Microsoft’s NETWORKDAYS.INTL(start_date, end_date, [weekend], [holidays]) takes the same weekend argument for counting.

Does Google Sheets add business days the same way?

Mostly. Google Docs Editors Help says WORKDAY calculates the end date after a specified number of working days, and gives the syntax as WORKDAY(start_date, num_days, [holidays]). WORKDAY.INTL adds [weekend] and NETWORKDAYS counts working days with the same [holidays] argument.

	Excel	Google Sheets
Add business days	WORKDAY(start_date, days, [holidays])	WORKDAY(start_date, num_days, [holidays])
Custom weekend	WORKDAY.INTL(start_date, days, [weekend], [holidays])	WORKDAY.INTL(start_date, num_days, [weekend], [holidays])
Count between dates	NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays])	NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays])

Google adds a note: WORKDAY does not autoconvert number formats in the same way that Google Sheets does upon direct entry into cells. In practice, use DATE(2027,1,4) or a cell reference rather than typing a date inside the formula. Google’s WORKDAY.INTL page also describes a weekend string in which a zero means a work day and a 1 means a weekend day.

Print the WORKDAY formula cheat sheet

The one-page printable holds the three formulas, the weekend codes, the Google string rule and the 11 observed 2027 dates, with a small table for your own start dates and results. Mark the start date on a 2027 printable yearly calendar or the January 2027 printable calendar, and see the US holiday list if you need dates beyond the federal ones.