Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 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: Using the EOMONTH Function.

Using the EOMONTH Function

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 2, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365


The EOMONTH function is used to return the serial number value for the last day of any particular month, past, present, or future. The syntax for the function is as follows:

=EOMONTH(base, offset)

The base value is a date from which the function should do its calculations, and the offset is a number that indicates how many months from the base date should be used. For instance, an offset of 0 would indicate that EOMONTH should return the last day of the month represented in base, whereas an offset of 4 would be four months after base, and -2 would be two months before.

As an example, the following are typical uses of EOMONTH. The first line can be used to return the last day of the current month, and the second line returns the last day of the month six months later than the date in A1:

=EOMONTH(NOW(),0)
=EOMONTH(A1,6)

Remember that EOMONTH returns a serial number. Excel does not automatically format the serial number as a date. In other words, you will need to explicitly format the cell as a date.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12156) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Using the EOMONTH Function.

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

Sending Printer Commands

If you need to send a command directly to your printer, then you need to use the PRINT field. It allows you to send ...

Discover More

Inserting a Non-Breaking Hyphen

Non-breaking hyphens can come in helpful for some types of writing. They force the words (or characters) on both sides of ...

Discover More

Understanding Ascending and Descending Sorts

When you sort information, Excel follows a set pattern of how your data is organized. This tip illuminates the burning ...

Discover More

Program Successfully in Excel! This guide will provide you with all the information you need to automate any task in Excel and save time and effort. Learn how to extend Excel's functionality with VBA to create solutions not possible with the standard features. Includes latest information for Excel 2024 and Microsoft 365. Check out Mastering Excel VBA Programming today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Calculating the Day of the Year

Need to know what day of the year a certain date is? You can figure it out easily using the formulas in this tip.

Discover More

Specifying a Language for the TEXT Function

You may want to use Excel to display dates using a different language than your normal one. There are a couple of ways ...

Discover More

Converting Radians to Degrees

When applying trigonometry to the values in a worksheet, you may need to convert radians to degrees. This is done by ...

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 5 - 4?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


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.