How the Day Counter Works
How many days are there until a deadline, since a birthday, or between two events? The Day Counter answers by counting whole calendar days between two dates. It also shows the same span in weeks, in years, months and days, and in weekdays.
What you enter
- The start date and the end date. The end can be before or after the start, and the calculator tells you which one it is.
- Count both dates? The usual answer counts the days that pass, so from the 1st to the 2nd is 1 day. If you choose Yes, both dates are counted, and the same span is 2 days. This is the way to count days of a trip, a course or a stay, where the first and the last day are both part of it.
The method
days = later date - earlier date (+ 1 if both dates are counted)
The dates are taken as whole days, at the same hour, so the length of a day is always the same. This means that summer time, when a day has 23 or 25 hours, does not add or take away a day, and it does not matter what time zone you are in. Leap years are included: a year that has a 29 February has 366 days.
Worked examples
| From | To | Days | In weeks, months and years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan 2024 | 31 Dec 2024 | 365 | 52 weeks and 1 day; 11 months, 30 days |
| 25 Sep 2026 | 25 Dec 2026 | 91 | 13 weeks; 3 months |
| 1 Jan 2000 | 25 Sep 2026 | 9,764 | 1,394 weeks and 6 days; 26 years, 8 months, 24 days |
| 29 Feb 2024 | 29 Feb 2028 | 1,461 | 4 years (three ordinary years and one leap year) |
- From: 1 Jan 2024
To: 31 Dec 2024
Days: 365
In weeks, months and years: 52 weeks and 1 day; 11 months, 30 days - From: 25 Sep 2026
To: 25 Dec 2026
Days: 91
In weeks, months and years: 13 weeks; 3 months - From: 1 Jan 2000
To: 25 Sep 2026
Days: 9,764
In weeks, months and years: 1,394 weeks and 6 days; 26 years, 8 months, 24 days - From: 29 Feb 2024
To: 29 Feb 2028
Days: 1,461
In weeks, months and years: 4 years (three ordinary years and one leap year)
Years, months and days
Months are not all of the same length, so this part needs a rule. The calculator counts the whole months first (one month less if the day of the end date is smaller than the day of the start date). Then it moves the start date forward by those months, to the last day of a month if that month is shorter (31 January plus 1 month is 28 February), and counts the days that are left. For example, from 31 January 2025 to 1 March 2025 is 1 month and 1 day.
Weekdays and weekend days
The calculator also splits the days into weekdays (Monday to Friday) and weekend days (Saturday and Sunday). This gives the working days in a period if you do not work at the weekend. It does not take off public holidays, because they are not the same in every country. Example, from 1 January to 31 December 2024 (365 days) there are 261 weekdays and 104 weekend days. Each block below is about 9 days:
████████████████████████████████████████ Weekdays 261 (green) Weekend days 104 (gray)
Chart: common spans
Each block is about 9 days.
1 week █ 7 days 1 month (about) ███ 30 days 1 quarter (about) ██████████ 91 days 6 months (about) ████████████████████ 182 days 1 year ████████████████████████████████████████ 365 days
Table: the days of 2026, month by month
| Month | Days | Weekdays | Weekend days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 31 | 22 | 9 |
| Feb | 28 | 20 | 8 |
| Mar | 31 | 22 | 9 |
| Apr | 30 | 22 | 8 |
| May | 31 | 21 | 10 |
| Jun | 30 | 22 | 8 |
| Jul | 31 | 23 | 8 |
| Aug | 31 | 21 | 10 |
| Sep | 30 | 22 | 8 |
| Oct | 31 | 22 | 9 |
| Nov | 30 | 21 | 9 |
| Dec | 31 | 23 | 8 |
| Year | 365 | 261 | 104 |
In the chart, green is the weekdays and gray is the weekend days of each month. Each block is about 0.6 of a day.
Jan ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 22 + 9 Feb █████████████████████████████████████████████████ 20 + 8 Mar ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 22 + 9 Apr ████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 22 + 8 May ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 21 + 10 Jun ████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 22 + 8 Jul ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 23 + 8 Aug ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 21 + 10 Sep ████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 22 + 8 Oct ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 22 + 9 Nov █████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 21 + 9 Dec ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 23 + 8
Tips
- Deadlines: check whether the first day or the last day counts, and use the "count both dates" option if it does.
- Age and anniversaries: use the years, months and days line.
- Working days: use the weekdays line, and take off the public holidays yourself.
- Long spans: the calculator can count from the year 1 to the year 9999, using the Gregorian calendar for all dates.
What this calculator does not include
- Public holidays and different working weeks (for example, a week that starts on Sunday).
- Hours and minutes. It counts whole days.
- Other calendars.
This tool is for general information. For a legal deadline, check the rules that apply to you for how the days are counted.