This business days calculator counts working days — weekdays excluding weekends, and optionally excluding US federal holidays — between any two dates. It can also run the other direction: start from a date and add a number of business days to find a deadline.
Business-day math is where contracts, shipping estimates, court filings, and payroll all get their deadlines, and it is easy to get wrong by hand because holidays shift: when July 4 lands on a Saturday, the federal observance moves to Friday July 3, which silently removes a working day from that week. This calculator applies the official observance rules automatically.
How Business Days Are Counted
The calculator walks the calendar one day at a time:
- Saturdays and Sundays never count
- If holiday exclusion is on, the 11 US federal holidays are skipped on their OBSERVED dates — a holiday falling on Saturday is observed the Friday before; one falling on Sunday is observed the Monday after
- By default the start date itself is not counted (the common convention for "X business days from today"), but you can include it with one click
Example: July 1 to July 31, 2026 spans 30 calendar days. Removing 8 weekend days leaves 22 weekdays, and Independence Day (Saturday July 4, observed Friday July 3) removes one more — 21 business days.
The 11 US Federal Holidays
Fixed-date holidays (shifted to Friday/Monday when they hit a weekend):
- New Year’s Day (January 1), Juneteenth (June 19), Independence Day (July 4), Veterans Day (November 11), Christmas (December 25)
Floating holidays (always on a weekday by definition):
- MLK Day (3rd Monday of January), Washington’s Birthday (3rd Monday of February), Memorial Day (last Monday of May), Labor Day (1st Monday of September), Columbus Day (2nd Monday of October), Thanksgiving (4th Thursday of November)
Note that many private employers do not observe all eleven — Columbus Day and Veterans Day are the most commonly worked — and banks follow the Federal Reserve calendar, which matches this list. If your context uses a different holiday set, switch holidays off and adjust manually.
Common Uses
Where business-day counts show up:
- Shipping: “5–7 business days” from a Friday order excludes 2 weekends — delivery lands 7–11 calendar days out
- Contracts and legal deadlines: response windows are usually specified in business days; courts have their own holiday calendars, so verify locally
- Payroll and banking: ACH transfers and settlements only process on banking days
- Project planning: a “10 working day” task starting mid-December can easily span 3 calendar weeks once holidays hit
When a deadline genuinely matters, confirm whether the counting convention includes or excludes day one — that single choice changes every answer by a day, which is why this calculator makes it an explicit option.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many business days are in a week / month / year?
A week has 5. Months have 20–23 weekdays depending on layout, minus any holidays — 21–22 is a good planning average. A 365-day year has 260 or 261 weekdays; subtracting the 11 federal holidays leaves roughly 249–251 working days in the US.
Do business days include holidays?
By default, no — most workplaces, banks, and shippers skip federal holidays, so this calculator excludes them unless you switch it off. Note that observance matters: a holiday landing on Saturday is taken on Friday, and one landing on Sunday is taken on Monday.
Is today counted when someone says "within 5 business days"?
Convention almost always starts counting the NEXT business day — a request made Monday is due the following Monday, not Friday. But contracts sometimes define it differently, which is why the calculator lets you include or exclude the start date explicitly.
What are the observed dates when a holiday falls on a weekend?
Under the federal rule, a holiday falling on Saturday is observed the preceding Friday, and one falling on Sunday is observed the following Monday. For example, when July 4 is a Saturday, federal workers (and most banks) take Friday July 3 off — and that Friday stops counting as a business day.
Are Saturday and Sunday ever business days?
Not in standard US usage — business days are Monday through Friday. Some industries define their own conventions (restaurants, retail, and some international contexts treat Saturday as a working day), in which case a plain day counter plus your own rules is the safer tool.