Business days calculator

The 11 US federal holidays: New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Nothing else. State holidays, school breaks, bank closures outside the US and company days are not in the list and cannot be added.

It moves to the nearest weekday, which is the rule federal offices follow: a Saturday holiday is observed on the Friday before, a Sunday holiday on the Monday after. The calculator excludes the observed day, not the calendar date, so a July 4 that falls on a Sunday removes Monday July 5 from the count.

Because most business-day rules are written as "within five business days of" an event, and the day the event happened is day zero. Counting begins the day after the start date and includes the end date. If your rule counts the start day as the first business day, subtract one from the start date before you calculate.

Put the earlier date first and the later date second, and read the count as the number of business days you have. Entering them the other way round returns the same count and says underneath that the end date comes before the start date, so the direction stays visible instead of being silently corrected.

Often, but not always, and the difference is what catches people out. Bank cut-off times, court filing rules, shipping carriers and government agencies each define the term in their own regulations, and some exclude days this calculator counts. Treat the result as weekday arithmetic and check the wording of the rule that actually binds you.