Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Days Left in the Year.

Days Left in the Year

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 6, 2019)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365


4

Do you ever need to figure out how many days are left in the current year? Since Excel stores dates as serial numbers—making them easy to subtract—it is easy to put together a formula that will return the number of days left in the year:

=DATE(YEAR(C12),12,31)-C12

This formula assumes that the date you want to analyze is in cell C12. It uses the DATE function to calculate the serial number for the last day of the year (December 31), and then subtracts the serial number for the actual date. The result is the difference—the number of days—between the two dates.

If you want to find the days left in the year from today, you don't need to put a date into a cell. You could use this formula:

=TEXT(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),12,31)-TODAY(),0)

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6147) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Days Left in the Year.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Preventing a Frame when Converting a Table to Text

Tables, in Word, can either be inline with the rest of your text or the text can wrap around the table. If you have ...

Discover More

Relative References within Named Ranges

Excel is usually more flexible in what you can reference in formulas than is immediately apparent. This tip examines some ...

Discover More

Moving Cells Using the Mouse

Want to easily move information from one cell to another? A quick way to do it is to simply drag and drop using the mouse.

Discover More

Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Automatically Advancing by a Month

Excel allows you to perform quite a few operations using dates in your worksheet. Sometimes, however, the answer may not ...

Discover More

Using a Two-Character Day of the Week in a Date Format

Excel provides quite a bit of flexibility in how you can format dates. Even so, some dates simply cannot be formatted ...

Discover More

The Last Business Day

Many businesses need to know when the last business day of the month occurs. This tip discusses several ways you can ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 8 - 5?

2019-07-10 03:45:39

SteveJez

Jim,
Or a simple formula.
=NETWORKDAYS.INTL(TODAY(),"31-12-"&YEAR(NOW()),1,Hols)

The formula has 4 arguments, 2 of which a optional. 1st is the start date, 2nd is the end date, 3rd is the w/e combination for your work pattern (see Figure 1 below) & 4th is a list of non working days - other than w/e's (national holidays).
You could just as easily refer to cells for, either or both, arguments 1 & 2 and enter dates you are interested in. (see Figure 2 below)

HTH

Figure 1. w/e pattern

Figure 2. Formula


2019-07-09 15:13:44

Harold Druss

Jim
How about a macro?
======================================
Sub BusinessDaysLeftInYear()
Dim iYear As String, iTarget As Date, j As Long

iYear = year(Now)
iTarget = "12/31/" & iYear

For i = 0 To iTarget - Now
Select Case Weekday(Now + i)
Case 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
j = j + 1
End Select
Next

MsgBox "Business Days left in this year: " & j

End Sub


2019-07-09 10:29:00

Greg renigar

This is a good tip. People might be interested in this reconfigured for fiscal year.


2019-07-08 12:04:34

Jim

Is there a formula to find out how many business days are left (Monday through Friday?)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.