Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. 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: Using Early Dates.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 19, 2026)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021
There are three basic types of information that can be stored in a cell: numeric values, strings (text), and dates. In reality, dates are nothing more than numeric values, with the number being stored representing the number of days (and partial days for the time portion of a date) since January 1, 1900. This is a quick, handy way for Excel to store dates.
What happens, however, if you are doing genealogical or historical work and you need to keep track of dates that are earlier than 1/1/1900? There are essentially three ways you can approach this problem.
First, you can split up your dates. You could, for instance, include three columns for each date: one for day, one for month, and one for year. This, of course, will not allow you to change display formats for different date notations, but it will allow you to sort (using the column contents) as you desire, and to do rudimentary math on the dates. This approach to early dates can be the easiest to implement.
Another option is to use your own date notation for entering dates. For instance, if you wanted to enter the date for April 25, 1885, you could enter it as 18850425. This would be treated as a numeric value by Excel, which means you could do math based on the numbers. Because the notation has the year first, you could easily sort dates according to need. The only drawback to this method is that you cannot use Excel's date formatting, and you must get used to the notational syntax.
Finally, you can either create your own macros to work with out-of-range dates, or you can use a third-party solution. One such solution is found at Charley Kyd's site:
http://www.exceluser.com/formulas/earlydates.htm
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11082) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Using Early Dates.
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2026-01-19 06:03:04
jamies
Maybe Julian dates as a base
yyyyddd
And the new term for the non-christian locations equivalent of "AD" dates is "CE"
I leave others to indicate what they use for dates before 0000,CE
but there are also the changes in the date references before the Gregorian "adjustments"
And then there are problems for getting working formulae, such as:
Gong Xi Fa Cai! On January 29, 2025, the Asian community will celebrate the Lunar New Year, year 4723 on Chinese calendars
and
Tibetan calendar, dating system based on a cycle of 60 Tibetan years, each of which usually has 354 days (12 cycles of the phases of the Moon). Adjustment to the solar year of about 365 days is made by intercalation of an extra month every three years.5 Dec 2025.
Hebrew Date Converter - January 19, 2026 / 1st of Sh'vat, 5786.
And .... the day numbering for calculations for month and day are effected by the Excel 1900 and 1904 start !
Fun for all
And then there are the daylight saving adjustments from GMT -
they effect the day number some with 60 minutes different, some with 30 minutes, and they occur if/as/when national governments decree !
So - for those doing calculations -
Advice - first get a decree from upon high - as to what approach will be taken !
and how things such as extra seconds in a year, or the repeated timestamps from the daylight saving/adjustments are to be, and may get applied !
so, with yyyyddd the basic start formulas could be as follows,
with appropriate checks for the epoch of the dates you are working with generating entries that Excel can manage
starting with them being integer, and positive
and 12 months
then you just take the day part and work out the month and day
because of the - 1900 glitch re 1900/02/29 in excel take the day 0 of 2000 (36525) and the last 2 digits of the yyyy
the month and day are obtained from those offset from the year 2000
so with Julian date entry in D1
=DATE((2000+(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),3,2))),1,(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),5,3)))
so use whichever of the following are appropriate
=MONTH(DATE((2000+(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),3,2))),1,(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),5,3))))
=TEXT(DAY(DATE((2000+(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),3,2))),1,(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),5,3)))),"00")
=N(DAY(DATE((2000+(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),3,2))),1,(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),5,3)))))
=DAY(DATE((2000+(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),3,2))),1,(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),5,3))))
=TEXT(DAY(DATE((2000+(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),3,2))),1,(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),5,3)))),"00")
=N(DAY(DATE((2000+(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),3,2))),1,(MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),5,3)))))
and
YEAR is =MID(TEXT(D1,"0000000"),1,4))
2021-09-12 12:57:48
Tomek
I meant dates after Jan. 1 and before Mar. 1, 1900.
2021-09-12 12:54:57
Tomek
There is a bug in the way Excel handles dates before March 1, 1900. The bug stems from the fact that year 1900 was NOT a LEAP year, but Excel accepts Feb. 29 of that year as a valid date!. It assigns serial number 60 to this date. Hence any arithmetic calculations that crosses that date is off by one day.
Also, Excel accepts 0 as the date serial number - and converts it to 1900-01-00. However it will not accept entry of such a date as valid and will treat it as text.
In general, the dates are handled OK if they are between March 1, 1900 and December 31, 9999
2021-06-27 10:25:51
J. Woolley
For extended date functions (years 0100 to 9999), see Chapter 8 of J. Walkenbach, "Excel 2013 Power Programming with VBA Examples." You can Download from https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Excel+2013+Power+Programming+with+VBA-p-9781118490402
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. 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:
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