Workdays Calculator (skip weekends + holidays)
Pick a start and end date, optionally include Saturday or Sunday as workdays, and add holiday dates to exclude. Returns workdays, weekend days, and holidays separately.
- Workdays
- 22
- Weekend days
- 9
- Holidays
- 0
- Total days
- 31
How it works
Why workday counting matters
Project deadlines, contract terms, payroll cycles, and leave planning all use 'business days' rather than calendar days. A 30-day delivery promise made on a Friday is actually 32 calendar days because the weekend doesn't count. Mistaking the two leads to missed deadlines and contract disputes.
Workdays also matter for legal counting: in many jurisdictions, statutory time limits (e.g., '14 business days to respond') exclude weekends and public holidays. Always check whether 'days' means calendar or business in any agreement.
Why we let you customize weekends
Most countries use Saturday-Sunday as the weekend, but it varies. Most Middle Eastern and some North African countries observe Friday-Saturday as the weekend. Some industries (retail, hospitality) consider weekends as workdays.
Our toggles let you mark Saturday or Sunday as workdays individually. So you can configure: Mon-Fri only (default), 6-day work week (include Saturday), or even Sunday-only weekend (uncheck Sunday).
How to use the holidays input
Paste a list of dates in YYYY-MM-DD format (ISO 8601). Separators can be commas, spaces, or newlines. Each date you list will be excluded from the workday count if it falls on what would otherwise be a workday.
For US federal holidays in 2026, paste: 2026-01-01, 2026-01-19, 2026-02-16, 2026-05-25, 2026-06-19, 2026-07-03, 2026-09-07, 2026-10-12, 2026-11-11, 2026-11-26, 2026-12-25.
For Japanese national holidays, similar lists are widely available. We don't include them automatically because (a) holidays vary by country, region, and year, and (b) some businesses observe additional company-specific days off.
Frequently asked questions
›Are start and end dates inclusive?
Yes. If both are workdays, both are counted. If your contract counts only the days between (exclusive), subtract 2 from the result.
›Why don't you include holidays automatically?
Holidays vary widely by country, region, and year. Auto-including them risks subtracting holidays that don't apply to your jurisdiction. Adding them manually keeps you in control.
›Can I use this for international contracts?
Yes — but make sure both parties agree on which holidays to count. Multinational contracts often specify 'business days as observed in the [city] of [country]' to avoid ambiguity.
›What if a holiday falls on a weekend?
It's not double-counted. If 2026-01-01 is a Thursday holiday, it's counted as a holiday. If 2026-12-25 falls on a Sunday, the algorithm correctly counts it as one day (weekend), not two.
›How does this work for a 6-day work week?
Check 'Saturday is a workday'. The calculator will count Mon-Sat as workdays and only exclude Sundays and listed holidays.
›What's the maximum date range I can compute?
Hundreds of years at minimum. The browser handles date arithmetic up to ±100 million days from 1970.
›Can I export the workday list?
Not as a download, but you can copy the displayed numbers. For a per-day list, a spreadsheet is more flexible.
›Does the data leave my browser?
No. Everything runs locally; nothing is sent to a server.
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