Excel NETWORKDAYS vs an Online Business Day Calculator

Last reviewed: May 19, 2026

If your dates are already in a spreadsheet, Excel is hard to beat. The NETWORKDAYS family counts working days and the WORKDAY family shifts a date forward or back by working days, both excluding weekends and any holidays you supply. This page shows the exact syntax, then explains the few situations where a browser tool does the job faster. The honest summary: for column-based, repeatable math, use the formulas; for quick or shared one-off answers, use the calculator.

Counting business days: NETWORKDAYS

The base function is =NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays]). It returns the number of whole working days between the two dates and counts both the start and the end date when they fall on weekdays. Saturday and Sunday are treated as the weekend automatically.

To exclude public holidays, put their dates in a range and pass it as the third argument. With holidays listed in cells H1:H10, the formula becomes =NETWORKDAYS(A2, B2, H1:H10). Holidays that happen to fall on a weekend are ignored automatically, so a list that includes them does not double-count.

Custom weekends: NETWORKDAYS.INTL

The plain NETWORKDAYS hard-codes a Saturday-Sunday weekend, which is wrong for much of the Middle East and a few other markets. =NETWORKDAYS.INTL(start_date, end_date, [weekend], [holidays]) adds a weekend argument. Pass a number code or a seven-character string:

1 or omitted: Saturday and Sunday (the default).
7: Friday and Saturday, common across the Gulf.
6: Thursday and Friday.
11 through 17: a single weekend day (11 is Sunday only, 17 is Saturday only).
A string like "0000011": seven digits for Monday through Sunday, where 1 marks a non-working day. "0000011" is the standard Saturday-Sunday weekend; "1000001" is a Sunday-Thursday week with Friday and Monday off, and so on.

A Sunday-to-Thursday working week, with Friday and Saturday off, is =NETWORKDAYS.INTL(A2, B2, 7, H1:H10).

Adding business days: WORKDAY and WORKDAY.INTL

To find a due date rather than count days, use =WORKDAY(start_date, days, [holidays]). =WORKDAY(A2, 30, H1:H10) returns the date 30 working days after the start, skipping weekends and the holidays you list. A negative day count walks backward, so a Net 30 deadline measured in business days is one formula. For a non-standard weekend, WORKDAY.INTL takes the same weekend codes as NETWORKDAYS.INTL.

Google Sheets uses the same four function names with the same arguments, so these formulas port across without changes. Our Excel guide and Google Sheets guide walk through more examples.

Where an online calculator helps

The spreadsheet functions are excellent, but they assume two things: that you are in a spreadsheet, and that you are willing to keep a holidays range accurate. Both break down often. You are on a phone. A client asks for a date over chat. You need the public holidays for Brazil and Japan and do not want to copy them into a column by hand. Someone on the team does not use Excel.

For those cases a browser calculator answers faster, carries the holiday data for you, and produces a link that reproduces the exact calculation when you paste it to someone else.

Excel NETWORKDAYS family vs BusinessDayCalculator.org. Excel details verified against Microsoft Office documentation in June 2026.
Feature	Excel NETWORKDAYS / WORKDAY	BusinessDayCalculator.org
Cost / account	Free with any Excel or Google Sheets licence	Free, no account or sign-up
Count business days between dates	Yes, =NETWORKDAYS(start, end)	Yes, built in
Add or subtract business days	Yes, =WORKDAY(start, days)	Yes, built in
Custom weekend (Fri-Sat, Sun-Thu)	Yes, via NETWORKDAYS.INTL / WORKDAY.INTL codes	Yes, set automatically per country
Public holidays	Only if you build and maintain a holidays range yourself	Built in for 25 countries plus sub-national regions
Works without a spreadsheet	No, needs Excel or Sheets open	Yes, any browser or phone
Shareable link to the exact result	No, you share a file or a cell	Yes, inputs are encoded in the URL
Embed on your own site	No	Yes, free iframe widgets

Try it without the spreadsheet

Count working days with the business days between dates calculator, or shift a date forward with add business days. Both carry public holidays for 25 countries and let you pick the country's working week. Running a help centre or docs site? The same tools are available as free embeddable widgets.

More comparisons on the alternatives hub.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the exact NETWORKDAYS syntax in Excel?

NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays]). The first two arguments are required and the holidays range is optional. It returns the count of whole working days between the two dates, counting both endpoints, with Saturday and Sunday treated as the weekend and any dates in the holidays range removed.

How do I handle a Friday-Saturday or Sunday-Thursday weekend in Excel?

Use NETWORKDAYS.INTL instead of NETWORKDAYS. Pass a weekend code as the third argument: 7 gives a Friday-Saturday weekend, 6 gives Thursday-Friday, and 11 through 17 give a single weekend day. You can also pass a seven-character string such as "0000011" where 1 marks a non-working day, Monday through Sunday left to right.

How do I add business days to a date in Excel rather than count them?

Use WORKDAY(start_date, days, [holidays]) to add or subtract working days, or WORKDAY.INTL for a custom weekend. WORKDAY(A1, 10) returns the date 10 working days after A1, skipping Saturdays and Sundays. A negative number subtracts, so WORKDAY(A1, -5) walks back 5 working days.

When is an online calculator better than NETWORKDAYS?

When you are not in a spreadsheet, when you do not want to build and maintain a holidays range for every country, when you need to share the exact result as a link, or when a colleague who does not use Excel needs the same answer. For one-off questions on a phone or in a browser tab, a calculator is faster than opening a workbook.