Business Days Calculator

Mode

Business days between dates Add N business days

Start date

End date

Include the end date in the count

Weekend days

Exclude US federal holidays

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business days

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Total days in range

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Weekend days skipped

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Holidays skipped

Holidays excluded: New Year's Day, MLK Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day (observed dates apply). Columbus Day is not counted as a holiday, matching most employer practice.

🔒Private by design. Every calculation happens in your browser. Your dates are never sent anywhere or stored.

Quick answer: a business day is any weekday that isn't a public holiday. Between October 1 and October 31, 2026 there are 22 business days — 31 calendar days minus 9 weekend days, with no federal holidays in the stretch. Pick a mode above, set your weekend and holidays, and you get the count plus every single day listed and exportable.

Last updated: October 2026

What counts as a business day?

Short answer: a business day is any Monday-to-Friday day that is not a public holiday. Weekends are out, and — in the US — the ten federal holidays this calculator tracks are out too. Everything else counts, including days like Columbus Day that are federal holidays on paper but which most private employers treat as normal workdays.

The definition matters because "10 business days" and "10 days" are different deadlines. A 10-business-day payment term starting Monday October 5, 2026 lands on Monday October 19 — four days later than a naive 10-calendar-day count would give you. Contracts, service-level agreements and payroll cutoffs almost always mean business days, and miscalculating by a weekend can mean a missed filing or a late fee. That's the whole point of this page: the answer, plus the full list of which days counted and which didn't, so you can prove it.

Worked example: business days in October 2026

Short answer: October 2026 has 22 business days. October 1 is a Thursday and October 31 is a Saturday, so the month contains 9 weekend days and 31 − 9 = 22 business days. No federal holidays fall in October (Columbus Day excepted — see above), so nothing else is subtracted.

Here's the full working the calculator does for you. October 2026 starts on a Thursday and ends on a Saturday, which gives five Saturdays and Sundays each — well, almost: the 31st is a Saturday, so weekend days are the 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th, 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th and 31st. Nine weekend days, zero holidays, 22 business days. Run the same check for any month with the calculator above — the day-by-day table shows each date labelled as a business day, weekend or holiday, and the CSV export lets you attach the proof to an invoice or a project plan.

How US federal holidays shift when they fall on a weekend

Short answer: when a fixed-date holiday lands on a Saturday it is observed the Friday before; on a Sunday, the Monday after. July 4, 2026 is a Saturday, so the federal observance — and this calculator's exclusion — falls on Friday, July 3.

The floating holidays (MLK Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving) always land on a Monday or Thursday by construction, so they never shift. The fixed ones do: New Year's Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Veterans Day and Christmas. Recent and upcoming examples: January 1, 2022 fell on a Saturday and was observed Friday December 31, 2021; July 4, 2026 is a Saturday observed Friday July 3; December 25, 2027 is a Saturday observed Friday December 24; and January 1, 2028 is a Saturday observed Friday December 31, 2027. The calculator computes observed dates for every year it touches, including the cross-year case where the observed Friday sits in the previous December.

Business days in each month of 2026

Short answer: 2026 has 251 business days — 365 calendar days minus 104 weekend days minus 10 federal holidays. The leanest months are February and November (19 each); March, April, July and October are the fullest at 22.

Month	Business days	Month	Business days
January	20	July	22
February	19	August	21
March	22	September	21
April	22	October	22
May	20	November	19
June	21	December	22

Why it varies: months with 31 days that start late in the week pack in extra weekdays, and holiday months bleed days — November loses Veterans Day and Thanksgiving (19), February is just short (19). Use the table for capacity planning and prorating, and the calculator for exact ranges.

Common uses: contract deadlines, SLA calculations, payroll

Short answer: anywhere a rule says "within N business days" — delivery SLAs, legal response windows, payroll cutoffs, shipping estimates.

Contract deadlines: "payment due within 10 business days" is the most common business-day phrase in contracts. Count from the day after the trigger event — that's what the "add N business days" mode does. SLA calculations: support contracts promise "4-business-hour" or "2-business-day" response times; counting only workdays is how vendors measure compliance, and the day table here is your audit trail. Payroll: biweekly pay periods that cross a holiday need the holiday excluded to reconcile paid days — 2026's Christmas falling on a Friday is the classic case that shifts a payroll week. Shipping and logistics: "3–5 business days" from a Thursday order means delivery between the following Tuesday and Thursday, not Sunday. Run each scenario above; the CSV export turns the count into evidence you can file.

Frequently asked questions

How do I calculate business days between two dates?

Count every day in the range, then subtract weekends and public holidays. This calculator does it instantly: enter the start and end dates, choose your weekend days and whether to exclude US federal holidays, and you get the business-day count plus a day-by-day breakdown you can export as CSV.

Does the calculator include the end date?

By default it does not — "business days between" means the difference, so October 1 to October 31 gives 22, not 23. There is an "include end date" checkbox if your deadline counts the final day itself.

Which US federal holidays are excluded?

Ten: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Columbus Day is a federal holiday too, but most private businesses ignore it, so the calculator leaves it out to match real work schedules.

What happens when a holiday falls on a weekend?

The holiday is observed on the nearest weekday: a Saturday holiday is observed the Friday before, a Sunday holiday the Monday after. For example, July 4 2026 falls on a Saturday, so it is observed on Friday July 3 — and the calculator excludes that Friday.

Can I change which days count as the weekend?

Yes. Besides the standard Saturday–Sunday, you can choose Friday–Saturday (used across the Gulf states) or Thursday–Friday. The count, the day-by-day table and the CSV export all follow your choice.

How do I add business days to a date?

Switch to the "Add N business days" mode, enter your start date and the number of days — use a negative number to go backwards. The calculator skips weekends and holidays: 3 business days after Thursday December 24 2026 lands on Wednesday December 30, because Christmas Day (Friday) is a holiday and the 26th–27th are a weekend.

What is the difference between business days and calendar days?

Calendar days are every day on the calendar; business days exclude weekends and public holidays. A "10 business days" deadline starting Monday January 5 2026 actually spans 14 calendar days — this calculator shows you exactly which days those are.

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