The deadline N business days after or before a start date, skipping weekends and the holidays you list, with the calendar days it spans.
By AdminDrafted with AI writing toolsUpdated Checked examples: 5
10 working days after Thu 12 Nov 2026 is Thursday, 26 November 2026: 14 calendar days later, skipping 4 weekend days.
| Date | Counts as |
|---|---|
| Thu 12 Nov 2026 | Start (not counted) |
| Fri 13 Nov 2026 | Working day 1 |
| Sat 14 Nov 2026 | Weekend |
| Sun 15 Nov 2026 | Weekend |
| Mon 16 Nov 2026 | Working day 2 |
| Tue 17 Nov 2026 | Working day 3 |
| Wed 18 Nov 2026 | Working day 4 |
| Thu 19 Nov 2026 | Working day 5 |
| Fri 20 Nov 2026 | Working day 6 |
| Sat 21 Nov 2026 | Weekend |
| Sun 22 Nov 2026 | Weekend |
| Mon 23 Nov 2026 | Working day 7 |
| Tue 24 Nov 2026 | Working day 8 |
| Wed 25 Nov 2026 | Working day 9 |
Start counting on the day after Thu 12 Nov 2026; the start date itself is not counted.
Weekend: Saturday and Sunday.
Thursday, 26 November 2026.
Counting starts on the day after the start date. Each day that is neither a weekend day nor a listed holiday counts as one working day, and the nth such day is the deadline; going backwards works the same way from the day before. This is the convention of Excel's WORKDAY functions and NumPy's busday_offset. A holiday that falls on a weekend is skipped once, not twice.
It is used for payment terms, statutory response times, service-level targets and delivery estimates. Five working days after Friday, 18 December 2026, with Christmas Day and New Year's Day listed, is Monday, 28 December, 10 calendar days later. England and Wales also have a bank holiday on 28 December 2026, the substitute day for Boxing Day; list it and the deadline moves to Tuesday, 29 December.
Public holidays differ by country and region, so none are assumed: paste your own, one ISO date per line.
Start counting on the day after the start date and skip weekends and holidays; the nth day you count is the deadline, as in Excel's WORKDAY. Ten business days after Thursday, 15 January 2026 is Thursday, 29 January, 14 calendar days later.
With a Saturday–Sunday weekend and no holidays, 5 business days from a weekday land on the same weekday a week later, so 10 business days are 14 calendar days. Each holiday that falls on a working day in the span pushes the deadline one working day later.
If 26 January is a holiday where you are, as it is in Australia (Australia Day) and India (Republic Day), skip it too. Day 10 then becomes Friday 30 January, 15 calendar days after the start.
| Start date | Working days | Direction and rule | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 January 2026 | 10 | After, Sat–Sun, start excluded | 29 January 2026 |
| 15 January 2026 | 10 | After, Sat–Sun, start counted | 28 January 2026 |
| 16 January 2026 | 1 | After, Sat–Sun | 19 January 2026 |
| 15 January 2026 | 1 | After, Fri–Sat | 18 January 2026 |
| 15 January 2026 | 3 | Before, Sat–Sun | 12 January 2026 |
| 15 January 2026 | 0 | After, Sat–Sun | 15 January 2026 |
Counting the start date as day 1 brings the deadline one working day forward, to Wednesday 28 January. One business day after Friday 16 January is Monday 19 January, three calendar days later.
With a Friday–Saturday weekend, as in Saudi Arabia, the working day after Thursday 15 January is Sunday 18 January. Three business days before Thursday 15 January is Monday 12 January, and zero business days returns the start date itself.
Both spreadsheets leave the start date uncounted, as above. With the start date in A2 and holiday dates in H2:H6:
=WORKDAY(A2, 10, H2:H6) adds 10 working days, skipping Saturdays, Sundays and the listed holidays.=WORKDAY(A2, -3, H2:H6) counts 3 working days back.=WORKDAY.INTL(A2, 10, 7, H2:H6) uses a Friday–Saturday weekend; weekend code 11 means Sunday only.=WORKDAY(A2-1, 10, H2:H6) counts the start date as day 1 when it is a working day.Microsoft's WORKDAY.INTL documentation lists the other weekend codes, including a seven-digit text form such as "0000110" for Friday and Saturday off.
2026-01-26 Australia Day. Semicolons also separate dates, and lines starting with # are ignored.To count the days between two known dates, use the date difference calculator. For the time left until a dated event, use the countdown calculator.
Checked against: skipped days counted by hand on a 2026 calendar
Checked against: Independent calculation
Checked against: Independent calculation
Checked against: Independent calculation
Count forward from the next day and skip weekends and public holidays. With no holidays in the way, 10 business days is two full working weeks, so from a weekday it lands on the same weekday 14 calendar days later: 10 business days after Thursday, 15 January 2026 is Thursday, 29 January. Each holiday on a weekday pushes the deadline one working day further.
Not by default. The first working day is the day after the start, the same as Excel's WORKDAY, so 1 business day after a Monday is Tuesday. Some contracts and procedures count the start date as day 1; switch on that option and 10 working days from Thursday, 15 January 2026 ends on Wednesday, 28 January instead of Thursday, 29 January.
Counting still begins with the next working day, so the weekend adds nothing. 1 business day after Saturday, 17 January 2026 is Monday, 19 January, the same answer as from Friday, 16 January. With the start-date option on, a start that isn't a working day can't be day 1, and the calculator warns you.
Between 20 and 23 weekdays before public holidays. February has exactly 20 in a common year and 20 or 21 in a leap year; a 30-day month has 20 to 22 and a 31-day month 21 to 23, depending on the weekday it starts on. A year of 261 weekdays, as in 2026, averages 21.75 per month.
This calculator includes 5 worked examples with independently sourced answers. They run in the test suite, and you can run them here too.