Business Days
Working days between dates, minus weekends and public holidays.
The business days calculator counts the working days between two dates, excluding weekends and public holidays. Choose a start date, an end date and a country, and it returns the number of working days along with a breakdown of total days, weekend days and holidays in the range. It is built for the questions that calendar-day arithmetic gets wrong: delivery dates, notice periods, invoice terms, court and filing deadlines, annual-leave planning and project schedules. Holiday calendars are included for the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
How to use the business days
- Select the start and end dates of your range.
- Choose the country whose public holidays should be excluded.
- Read the headline number of working days.
- Check the breakdown for total days, weekend days and public holidays counted.
Worked examples
13 July to 14 August 2026, United States
33 calendar days, of which 10 are weekend days, leaving 23 working days — and no federal holiday falls in that window. A month on the calendar is barely three working weeks.
The cost of a holiday-heavy stretch
The last two weeks of December contain 10 calendar weekdays but typically only 8 working days once Christmas Day and Boxing Day or New Year's Day are removed. Any schedule that treats December as a normal month is already a week behind.
Thirty days versus thirty working days
A 30-calendar-day notice period ends about six weeks earlier than a 30-working-day one. Check which your contract says: “30 days” and “30 business days” differ by roughly 12 days.
What counts as a working day
A working day here is any date in the range that is not a Saturday, not a Sunday, and not a listed public holiday for the country you selected. Both the start and end dates are included in the range and are each classified as working, weekend or holiday.
When a public holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday it is counted once, as a weekend day, so the totals always add up to the number of calendar days in the range. Many jurisdictions grant a substitute day off in that situation — the United Kingdom formalises this with substitute bank holidays and the United States with observed federal holidays — and the calculator uses the observed date where that is the date people actually take off.
Which holidays are covered
The calculator uses national public-holiday calendars for the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. These are the days observed nationally; they do not include regional or state-specific holidays, of which all four countries have many. Patriots' Day in Massachusetts, St Patrick's Day in Northern Ireland, Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Quebec and Melbourne Cup Day in Victoria are all real days off that a national calendar does not capture.
Company shutdowns, sector-specific closures and bank-only holidays are likewise not modelled. If a precise legal deadline is at stake, confirm the applicable calendar with the relevant authority — court and filing rules sometimes define business days differently again.
Why the distinction matters
Roughly 28% of the days in a year are weekend days, and public holidays remove another 8 to 13 depending on the country. A year of 365 calendar days contains only about 250 working days, so any conversion between the two units is a factor of roughly 1.4 — and applying it in the wrong direction is the single most common cause of a missed schedule.
Contracts are rarely explicit about which they mean, and the default differs by jurisdiction and by sector. When the wording says “days” without qualification, most legal systems read it as calendar days; when it says “business days” or “working days”, weekends and public holidays come out. If the wording is ambiguous, the safe move is to plan against the earlier of the two dates.
Frequently asked questions
Which days count as working days?
Every day in the range that is not a Saturday, a Sunday, or a listed public holiday for the selected country counts as a working day.
Are the start and end dates included?
Yes. The range is inclusive of both the start and end dates, and each is classified as working, weekend or holiday.
Which countries' holidays are supported?
You can currently choose the United States, United Kingdom, Canada or Australia. Each uses that country's national public-holiday calendar.
What if a holiday falls on a weekend?
Weekends take priority in the count, so a holiday that lands on a Saturday or Sunday is counted as a weekend day rather than double-counted. The totals always sum to the calendar days in the range.
Are regional or state holidays included?
No. Only national public holidays are modelled. State, provincial and regional days off — and company shutdowns — vary too widely to cover reliably, so check your local calendar if a deadline is critical.
How many working days are in a year?
About 250 in most of the four supported countries: 365 calendar days, minus roughly 104 weekend days, minus 8 to 13 public holidays depending on the country and the year.
Can I use it for notice periods or leave?
Yes. Because it excludes weekends and holidays, it suits notice periods, annual-leave planning and any working-day deadline — but confirm whether your contract counts calendar days or business days first.
How do I count every calendar day instead?
Use the date difference calculator, which counts the full span in years, months and days plus flat totals, with no exclusions.