Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. 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: Calculating Elapsed Time with Excluded Periods.
Mahesh can figure out how to calculate the difference between two dates and times in minutes. However, he would like to calculate the difference in minutes, yet exclude the hours between 5:00 pm and 8:00 am as well as excluding everything between 5:00 pm Friday to 8:00 am Monday. For example, if the first date is 02/18/09 6:00 pm and the end date is 02/19/09 9:00 am, the correct result should be 60 minutes. Mahesh wonders if this possible to do with a formula.
As should be obvious, a formula to achieve the desired result could be very complex. Many subscribers provided different solutions, including some great user-defined functions. Rather than focus on all of them, I figured I would just jump right to the most elegant (shortest) formula and suggest using it.
Assume that your starting date/time was in cell A1 and the ending date/time was in cell B1. Given these you could use the following formula:
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. 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: 
=(NETWORKDAYS(A1,B1)-1)*("17:00"-"08:00")
+IF(NETWORKDAYS(B1,B1),MEDIAN(MOD(B1,1),"17:00"
,"08:00"),"17:00")-MEDIAN(NETWORKDAYS(A1,A1)
*MOD(A1,1),"17:00","08:00")
This is a single formula; it returns an elapsed time. This means that you will need to format the cell to show elapsed time. If you prefer to have the result as a regular integer, then you should use this version of the formula, instead:
=((NETWORKDAYS(A1,B1)-1)*("17:00"-"08:00")
+IF(NETWORKDAYS(B1,B1),MEDIAN(MOD(B1,1),"17:00"
,"08:00"),"17:00")-MEDIAN(NETWORKDAYS(A1,A1)
*MOD(A1,1),"17:00","08:00"))*1440
The change (multiplying the original result by 1440) results in a number of minutes rather than an elapsed time. The value 1440 is derived by multiplying 60 by 24 to get the number of minutes in a day.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12004) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Calculating Elapsed Time with Excluded Periods.
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2017-11-29 18:27:48
Larry Edgar-Smith
Allen - Thanks for this! I have been wrestling with this calculation for a while, and this helped me to get it done! The only thing I added was the Holidays parameter from a list I had.
2017-04-12 16:51:54
Stone Giant
FrankT: NETWORKDAYS(B1,B1) can return 0 or 1 depending on whether or not the cell contains a weekend, holiday, or business day. Your formula makes an invalid assumption that A1 and B1 always contains a business day.
2017-02-14 10:11:08
FrankT
NETWORKDAYS(B1,B1)= 1
NETWORKDAYS(A1,A1)= 1
therefore just:
=(NETWORKDAYS(A1,B1)-1)*("17:00"-"08:00")
+MEDIAN(MOD(B1,1),"17:00","08:00")
-MEDIAN(MOD(A1,1),"17:00","08:00")
2016-07-31 15:08:53
maesh
can any one help me to covert same formula in SQL server function or procedure I tried to convert but not getting correct result.
2015-08-30 03:23:47
Robert
I REALLY like this tip, i have a report that requires me to exclude non-working hours for IT fault cases and this formula does that perfectly! Thanks
2015-08-28 09:55:25
Yvan Loranger
ooops, would help if I format properly.
Original 2 formulae are good
2014-11-23 14:22:21
Yvan Loranger
You have trouble because formula is wrong. Try
=IF(NETWORKDAYS(A1,B1)<2,0,
(NETWORKDAYS(A1,B1)-2)*9) +
IF(INT(A1)=INT(B1),MEDIAN(MOD(B1,1)*24,8 ,17)-MEDIAN(MOD(A1,1)*24,8,17),
17-MEDIAN(MOD(A1,1)*24,8,17)+MEDIAN(MOD(B1,1)*24,8,17)-8)
Take example from Thursday to Tuesday, NETWORKDAYS gives 4,subtract 2 for Thursday & Tuesday which we'll deal differently since they may not be full 9 hr days. IF 1st day=last day then use last time - 1st time
ELSE [for Thurs & Tues] 17-1st time (Thurs) + last time(Tues)-8
2013-07-30 12:33:27
Aby
I as trying to decipher this formula but couldn't.Could you please explain a bit.
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