data tool
Business days calculator
Add a number of business days to a start date to find a deadline, or count the business days between two dates, with weekends and your own list of holidays skipped. Paste the holidays that apply to you, one date per line, and choose which days of the week count as the weekend.
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- Runs on your device, nothing is uploaded
- Free, no sign in
- No watermark, no file limit
How it works
- 1
Choose what to work out
Add business days finds a deadline. Count between dates gives the number of business days in a range. The arrow keys switch between them.
- 2
Enter the dates or the count
Set the start date, then either the number of business days, negative to count back, or the end date.
- 3
Paste the holidays
One per line, date first as YYYY-MM-DD, such as 2026-12-25 Christmas Day. Lines that cannot be read are listed so nothing is skipped silently.
- 4
Check the weekend and read the result
Tick the weekend days that apply, then read the date or count, with every holiday that was skipped listed under it. Copy the result takes it as text.
How a business day count starts
Within 5 business days of Friday 18 December usually means the following Monday is day one, not the Friday itself. Add business days follows that reading: it starts on the day after the start date and counts forward, skipping weekend days and listed holidays, until the count is used up. A count of zero returns the start date. A negative count runs backwards the same way, which suits a question such as the last day to lodge something 10 business days before a hearing. When counting between two dates, the start date is left out and the end date is included, unless you tick the box to count the start date too.
Why there is no holiday calendar
Public holidays differ between countries, between states and provinces inside a country, and from year to year, with substitute days when a holiday falls on a weekend. A built in list would be wrong for many readers without saying so. Instead, the tool skips exactly the dates you paste, tells you which of them fell inside the range, and warns when a holiday lands on a weekend day, because that is usually when an observed day moves to the Monday. Official lists are published by Fair Work in Australia, GOV.UK for the United Kingdom and the Office of Personnel Management for United States federal holidays.
Business days and signing deadlines
Deadlines in contracts and notices are often in business days, while the systems that enforce them count calendar time. An e-sign envelope, for example, expires 30 calendar days after it is created, weekends and holidays included, and the app gives no way to set a different date. So if a contract says the other party has 15 business days to sign, check here that the date falls inside those 30 calendar days. Over the Christmas period, with three holidays in a fortnight, 15 business days can take more than three weeks.
Changing the weekend
Saturday and Sunday are ticked to start with. Many countries use a different working week: Friday and Saturday off is common in the Middle East, and some businesses close on one weekday instead of two. Tick or untick any day of the week and both the added date and the count update. Ticking all seven leaves no business days at all, and the tool says so rather than running forever.
Limits worth knowing
Dates are whole calendar days, so the time a document arrived and the time zone of each party are not part of the count. Where a contract says a notice sent after 5 pm is received the next business day, move the start date yourself before counting. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is stored, ever, including the holiday list, so keep a copy of it somewhere you can paste from next time.
Limits
- There is no built in holiday calendar. Paste the public holidays and closure days that apply where the deadline runs.
- Adding counts from the day after the start date, so 1 business day after a Friday is the Monday.
- Up to 10,000 business days added, and ranges of up to about 50 years counted.
What it does not do
- It does not know any country's, state's or company's holidays.
- It does not count business hours, only whole days.
- It does not apply a contract's own rules about when a notice is received; read the clause and set the start date to match.
Questions people ask
Is Saturday a business day?
Not usually. Business days are normally Monday to Friday, leaving out weekends and public holidays. Some laws and industries define it differently: banking days follow the bank's calendar, and a few contracts count Saturdays. Read the definitions clause, and if Saturday counts, untick it in the weekend days so the tool includes it.
How many business days are in a year?
A year has 260 or 261 weekdays, depending on which day of the week it starts on and whether it is a leap year. Take away the public holidays that fall on weekdays where you are, often between 8 and 12, to get the working total. Count from 1 January to 31 December with Count the start date too ticked to see it for one year.
What does T+2 settlement mean in business days?
It means the trade settles two business days after the trade date, so a Thursday trade settles on Monday when no holiday intervenes. Markets have their own holiday calendars, which can differ from public holidays, so paste the exchange's trading holidays rather than your state's. The same counting applies to any T plus N rule.
Can I get the holidays in the right format quickly?
Copy the dates from your official holiday page into a spreadsheet, format the column as a date in the YYYY-MM-DD style, and paste the column here. A label after the date on the same line is ignored, so a list such as 2026-01-26 Australia Day works as it is. The tool lists any line it could not read.
Are my dates and holidays uploaded?
No. Every count runs in this page on your device and no network request carries what you type. Nothing is stored either, not even the holiday list, so it disappears when the tab is closed or refreshed. Keep your list in a note if you will need it again.
Send a contract before the deadline runs out
Take what you made here into e-signatures.
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Background reading: the question page on this.
Sources
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .