How to use the NETWORKDAYS.INTL function

What is the NETWORKDAYS.INTL function?

The NETWORKDAYS.INTL function calculate the number of working days between two dates, excluding weekends. It also allows you to ignore a list of holiday dates that you can specify. You may specify which days are weekend days.

1. Introduction

What is the difference between the NETWORKDAYS.INTL function and the NETWORKDAYS function?

The NETWORKDAYS.INTL function lets you use custom weekend parameters. Actually they don't have to be a weekend day, it can be a weekday also. This makes it really versatile for all sorts of calculations like how many Mondays are there between a given start and end date.

What is an Excel date?

Dates are stored numerically but formatted to display in human-readable date/time formats, this enables Excel to do work with dates in calculations.

For example, dates are stored as sequential serial numbers with 1 being January 1, 1900 by default. The integer part (whole number) represents the date the decimal part represents the time.

This allows dates to easily be formatted to display in many date/time formats  like mm/dd/yyyy, dd/mm/yyyy and so on and still be part of calculations as long as the date is stored numerically in a cell.

You can try this yourself, type 10000 in a cell, press CTRL + 1 and change the cell's formatting to date, press with left mouse button on OK. The cell now shows 5/18/1927.

Why are dates actually integers in Excel?

This allows for calculations like adding or subtracting days to a given date. It also allows for easy formatting meaning you can customize the look of a given date by formatting the cell to your needs.

Related functions

2. Syntax

NETWORKDAYS.INTL(start_date, end_date, [weekend], [holidays])

Weekend numbers

You may also specify weekend days using a string containing only 1 and 0 (zero).

• 1 - weekend
• 0 - workday

3. Example

This example demonstrates how to use the  NETWORKDAYS.INTL function. The image above shows a date range in cells B3:C3, the start date is 1/8/2018 and the end date is 1/30/2018. The holidays are specified in cells B6 and B7, they are: 1/18/2018 and 1/19/2018. Cells B14:D14 contain a text string where 1 represents "weekend" and 0 (zero) represents "weekday", the text string in this example is "1110011" where the first position represents Monday, the second position represents Tuesday, and so on. The last digit is Sunday. Example, "1110011" considers only Thursdays and Fridays as workdays, all other days in the week are weekend days.

The NETWORKDAYS.INTL function has the following arguments:

• start_date -  B3
• end_date - C3
• [weekend] - "1110011"
• [holidays] - B6:B7

Formula in cell D9:

If the start date is 1/8/2018 and the end date is 1/30/2018,  1/18/2018 and 1/19/2018 are holidays then only 1/11/2018, 1/12/2018, 1/25/2018, and 1/26/2018 matches the criteria meaning there are four workdays which is the number displayed in cell D9.

4. NETWORKDAYS.INTL example - count a specific weekday between two dates

NETWORKDAYS function returns the number of whole workdays between two dates, however the formula I am going to demonstrate in this article counts, for example, Mondays or any weekday in a date range. Later in this article, I will show you how to exclude holidays.

Update! I recommend using the NETWORKDAYS.INTL function to count weekdays, it is a lot smaller and easier to work with.

Regular formula in cell D2:

Copy cell D2 and paste to cell range E2:J2. You need to change "0111111" to "1011111" in cell E2, in cell F2 change it to "1101111" and so on.

The text string "0111111" allows you to specify which days are weekdays and which are weekends. There are seven characters and they can be 1 or 0 (zero), 1 indicates it is a weekend and not being counted, 0 (zero) is a weekday.

However, in this case, I am using the string to exclude specific days, I am not using it to define which days are weekends.

4.1 Exclude holidays

Update! You can use the NETWORKDAYS.INTL function to count weekdays and ignore holidays as well.

Formula in cell D2:

Array formula in cell D7 (old formula):

How to create an array formula

1. Select cell D7.
2. Paste array formula.
3. Press and hold Ctrl + Shift.
4. Press Enter.

How to copy array formula

1. Copy cell D7.
2. Select cell range E7:J7.
3. Paste.

5. Count a specific weekday between two dates - alternative formula

This alternative formula is larger and more complicated, I recommend using the NETWORKDAYS.INTL function instead.

Array formula in cell D2 (old formula):

How to create an array formula

1. Select cell D2.
2. Paste array formula.
3. Press and hold Ctrl + Shift simultaneously.
4. Press Enter.
5. Release all keys.

How to copy array formula

1. Copy cell D2.
2. Select cell range E2:J2.
3. Paste.

Explaining formula in cell D2

Step 1 - Create dates in the date range

$B$1+(ROW($A$1:INDEX($A$1:$A$1000, $B$2-($B$1-1)))-1)

becomes

41000+(ROW($A$1:INDEX($A$1:$A$1000, 41029-(41000-1)))-1)

becomes

41000+(ROW($A$1:INDEX($A$1:$A$1000, 41029-40999))-1)

becomes

41000+(ROW($A$1:INDEX($A$1:$A$1000, 41029-40999))-1)

becomes

41000+(ROW($A$1:INDEX($A$1:$A$1000, 30))-1)

becomes

41000+(ROW($A$1:$A$30)-1)

becomes

41000+({1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30}-1)

becomes

41000+{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29}

and returns

{41000, 41001, 41002, 41003, 41004, 41005, 41006, 41007, 41008, 41009, 41010, 41011, 41012, 41013, 41014, 41015, 41016, 41017, 41018, 41019, 41020, 41021, 41022, 41023, 41024, 41025, 41026, 41027, 41028, 41029}

Step 2 - Convert dates to days of the week

TEXT($B$1+(ROW($A$1:INDEX($A$1:$A$1000, $B$2-($B$1-1)))-1), "ddd")

becomes

TEXT({41000, 41001, 41002, 41003, 41004, 41005, 41006, 41007, 41008, 41009, 41010, 41011, 41012, 41013, 41014, 41015, 41016, 41017, 41018, 41019, 41020, 41021, 41022, 41023, 41024, 41025, 41026, 41027, 41028, 41029}, "ddd")

and returns

{"Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", "Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", "Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", "Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", "Sun", "Mon"}

Step 3 - Check if values in array are equal to the value in cell D1 (Mon)

IF(TEXT($B$1+(ROW($A$1:INDEX($A$1:$A$1000, $B$2-($B$1-1)))-1), "ddd")=D1, 1, 0)

becomes

IF({"Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", "Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", "Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", "Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", "Sun", "Mon"}, "ddd")="Mon", 1, 0)

and returns

{0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1}

Step 4 - Sum values in array

SUMPRODUCT(IF(TEXT($B$1+(ROW($A$1:INDEX($A$1:$A$1000, $B$2-($B$1-1)))-1), "ddd")=D1, 1, 0))

becomes

SUMPRODUCT({0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1})

and returns 5 in cell D2.

'NETWORKDAYS.INTL' function examples

Functions in 'Date and Time' category

The NETWORKDAYS.INTL function function is one of 22 functions in the 'Date and Time' category.

Excel categories

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