Business Days Calculator

By default this calculator treats Monday through Friday as business days and Saturday/Sunday as non-business. To exclude holidays, paste them into the holidays field as YYYY-MM-DD dates separated by commas, spaces, or new lines.

Federal US holidays in 2026 (paste-ready): 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.

Different industries and contracts use different definitions — banking 'business day' usually excludes Federal Reserve holidays, while UK 'working day' excludes bank holidays. When in doubt, list the exact dates that don't count for your scenario.

Contract deadlines: many SLAs, court filings, and procurement timelines specify business-day windows (e.g. 'response within 5 business days'). This calculator's add-mode shows the deadline date directly so you can put it on the calendar without counting fingers.

Project planning: estimate elapsed working days for sprints, change-control windows, or onboarding ramps. Between-mode counts both endpoints inclusively, which matches how most project management tools (Jira, Asana, MS Project) report working-day durations.

Payroll and PTO: convert calendar weeks to working days for accruals, or count business days between two pay periods. A semi-monthly payroll typically covers 10–11 business days per period; bi-weekly is always 10.

Shipping and fulfillment: 'ships in 2–3 business days' translates to a calendar date only after you subtract weekends and the carrier's observed holidays. Most US carriers (UPS, FedEx Ground, USPS) observe the same federal holiday list but make exceptions for Saturday delivery on certain services.

Holidays that fall on a weekend usually shift to the nearest weekday under US federal rules: a Saturday holiday observes on Friday, a Sunday holiday observes on Monday. New Year's Day 2028 (a Saturday) is observed by federal offices on Friday Dec 31, 2027 — so add 2027-12-31 to your holiday list for that year, not 2028-01-01, if you're aligning with federal closures.

Half-day holidays (the day before Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve for many private employers) aren't standardized. Treat them as full business days unless your specific contract or office policy says otherwise.

International deadlines often follow the holiday calendar of the receiving party, not the sender. A 5-business-day SLA from a London supplier to a New York buyer should exclude UK bank holidays (Boxing Day, Early May Bank Holiday, Spring/Summer Bank Holiday) — not US federal ones. When in doubt, paste both calendars into the holidays field; duplicates are ignored.

Leap years and month boundaries are handled automatically. A 30-business-day window starting in late February correctly skips the Feb 29 weekend or weekday depending on the year.

Adding 5 business days to a Friday lands on the following Friday — 7 calendar days later, because Saturday and Sunday don't count. Subtracting 5 business days from a Monday lands on the previous Monday, also 7 calendar days. The asymmetry shows up when the start date is itself a weekend or holiday: the calculator advances to the next valid business day before it starts counting, so 'start + 0 business days' from a Sunday returns Monday, not Sunday.

This matches how courts and banks typically interpret 'business days from receipt' — the clock starts on the next business day, not the day a document was received over a weekend. If your contract has a different convention, adjust the start date manually by one day before entering it.