Add Days to a Date in Excel and Google Sheets
Purpose
Adding days to a date is one of those formulas that surprises people with how simple it is. No special…
Adding days to a date is one of those formulas that surprises people with how simple it is. No special function needed — just add the number of days directly to the date cell. Dates in Excel and Google Sheets are stored as sequential numbers where each day is one unit, so =A2+30 genuinely adds 30 days and returns the correct future date, including crossing month and year boundaries automatically. I use this constantly for due dates, expiry dates, follow-up reminders, and contract deadlines. Add an invoice date plus 30 and you get the payment due date. Add a subscription start date plus 365 and you get the renewal date. If you need to skip weekends and add only working days, that is where WORKDAY comes in. And subtracting days works identically — =A2-14 gives you the date two weeks ago. Understanding this basic arithmetic on dates unlocks almost every date calculation in a spreadsheet.
Syntax
✓ Excel 2003+
✓ Google Sheets
= Same syntax
=A2 + days
For working days only, use =WORKDAY(A2, days).
Arguments
| Argument | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| For simple addition: date | Required | The starting date cell, e.g. A2. |
| days | Required | The number of days to add as a number, e.g. 30. Use a negative number to subtract days. |
| For WORKDAY: start_date | Required | The starting date. |
| days | Required | The number of working days to add, excluding weekends. |
| holidays | Optional | A range of dates to also skip — public holidays or company closure dates. |
How it works
Excel and Google Sheets store dates as serial numbers — January 1 1900 is 1, January 2 1900 is 2, and so on. Each day is exactly one unit. This means adding an integer to a date adds that many days, and subtracting an integer removes that many days. The result is a new serial number which the spreadsheet displays as a date when the cell is formatted as a date. Month and year boundaries are handled automatically — adding 30 to March 15 produces April 14 without any manual boundary checking. For adding working days only — skipping Saturdays and Sundays — the WORKDAY function handles the calculation. WORKDAY(A2,30) counts 30 working days forward from A2. An optional third argument accepts a range of public holiday dates to skip those as well. TODAY() can replace any start date for date arithmetic — calculating relative dates from the current date — and it recalculates automatically every time the workbook opens so reminder and deadline columns stay current.
Examples
1
Calculate the payment due date for each invoice by adding 30 days to the invoice date.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Invoice | Invoice Date | Due Date |
| 2 | INV-001 | 2024-03-01 | =B2+30 |
| 3 | INV-002 | 2024-03-15 | 2024-04-14 |
| 4 | INV-003 | 2024-03-28 | 2024-04-27 |
| 5 | INV-004 | 2024-04-10 | 2024-05-10 |
| 6 | INV-005 | 2024-04-22 | 2024-05-22 |
| 7 | INV-006 | 2024-05-01 | 2024-05-31 |
Row 2: 2024-03-31
— 2024-03-01 plus 30 days equals 2024-03-31. The month boundary for INV-002 — March 15 plus 30 days crossing into April — is handled automatically.
Format the Due Date column as a date — without date formatting the result displays as a serial number. If B2 is already formatted as a date, the result column usually picks up the same format automatically.
2
Use WORKDAY to add 10 working days to each task start date, automatically skipping Saturdays and Sundays.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Task | Start Date | Deadline (10 working days) |
| 2 | Design | 2024-04-01 | =WORKDAY(B2,10) |
| 3 | Development | 2024-04-08 | 2024-04-22 |
| 4 | Testing | 2024-04-15 | 2024-04-29 |
| 5 | Review | 2024-04-22 | 2024-05-06 |
| 6 | Launch | 2024-04-29 | 2024-05-13 |
Row 2: 2024-04-15
— Starting 2024-04-01 (Monday), counting 10 working days forward and skipping the two weekends gives 2024-04-15 (Monday).
WORKDAY skips Saturdays and Sundays automatically. To also skip public holidays, add a third argument pointing to a range of holiday dates: =WORKDAY(B2,10,Holidays!$A$2:$A$20).
3
Subtract 14 days from each expiry date to calculate the reminder date — the date to send a renewal notice two weeks before expiry.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Contract | Expiry Date | Reminder Date |
| 2 | CTR-001 | 2024-06-15 | =B2-14 |
| 3 | CTR-002 | 2024-07-01 | 2024-06-17 |
| 4 | CTR-003 | 2024-07-20 | 2024-07-06 |
| 5 | CTR-004 | 2024-08-05 | 2024-07-22 |
| 6 | CTR-005 | 2024-09-01 | 2024-08-18 |
Row 2: 2024-06-01
— 2024-06-15 minus 14 days equals 2024-06-01. All month boundary crossings — such as CTR-002 going from July back to June — are handled automatically.
Subtracting days uses the identical logic as adding: dates are numbers, so subtraction moves backward in time. Use =TODAY()-B2 to calculate how many days ago a date occurred, or =B2-TODAY() to calculate days remaining.
Common use cases
1. Calculate payment due dates by adding net payment terms (30, 60, 90 days) to invoice dates
=B2+30
2. Add a fixed subscription or warranty period to a start date to find the expiry date
=B2+365
3. Calculate task deadlines from a start date using only working days with WORKDAY
=WORKDAY(B2,10)
4. Generate renewal reminder dates by subtracting a notice period from the expiry date
=B2-14
5. Show how many days remain until a deadline using TODAY and date subtraction
=B2-TODAY()
Common errors
Result displays as a number instead of a date
The result cell is not formatted as a date. Adding days to a date returns a serial number that looks like a large integer without date formatting.
Fix: Select the result column, press Ctrl+1, and choose a Date format. Or format the column as a date before entering the formula.
Result is wrong — months or years are off
You used addition to add months or years by multiplying days (e.g. +30 for a month or +365 for a year) but month lengths vary. March 31 plus 30 days is April 30, not March 31 of the next month.
Fix: For adding months use DATE: =DATE(YEAR(B2),MONTH(B2)+1,DAY(B2)). For adding years: =DATE(YEAR(B2)+1,MONTH(B2),DAY(B2)).
WORKDAY counts include weekends
You used simple addition (+10) instead of WORKDAY when you needed working days only.
Fix: Replace =B2+10 with =WORKDAY(B2,10) to automatically skip Saturdays and Sundays in the day count.
Tips and variations
Use TODAY() as the start date for rolling deadlines
=TODAY()+30 always gives the date 30 days from now and recalculates every time the spreadsheet opens. This is the pattern for rolling due-date and expiry columns that stay current automatically.
=TODAY()+30
Add WORKDAY holidays argument to skip public holidays
WORKDAY accepts a third argument — a range of holiday dates — to exclude from the working day count. Point it at a named range like Holidays to skip company-specific closure dates on top of weekends.
=WORKDAY(B2,10,Holidays)
Use date subtraction to calculate days remaining or days overdue
=B2-TODAY() returns positive days remaining if the date is in the future and negative days overdue if it is in the past. Wrap in IF to label the result: =IF(B2>=TODAY(),"In "&(B2-TODAY())&" days","Overdue").
=B2-TODAY()
Excel vs Google Sheets
Excel vs Google Sheets
Simple date addition and subtraction (=A2+30) works identically in Excel 2003 and newer and every version of Google Sheets. WORKDAY is also available in both applications with the same syntax. Formulas copy between the two without changes.
Related reading
Frequently asked questions
Simply add the number of days to the date cell: =A2+30 adds 30 days to the date in A2. Dates in Excel and Google Sheets are stored as sequential numbers, so adding an integer adds that many days. No special function is needed for adding whole days — direct addition is the fastest and most readable approach.
Use WORKDAY: =WORKDAY(A2,30) adds 30 working days to A2, automatically skipping Saturdays and Sundays. An optional third argument accepts a range of holiday dates to skip those too. WORKDAY is available in Excel 2003 and newer and Google Sheets.
Combine TODAY() with addition: =TODAY()+7 returns the date 7 days from now. =TODAY()+30 gives one month's approximate future date. TODAY() recalculates automatically every time the spreadsheet opens, so the result always reflects the current date.
For months, use the DATE function with MONTH arithmetic: =DATE(YEAR(A2),MONTH(A2)+3,DAY(A2)) adds 3 months while handling month-end overflow automatically. For years: =DATE(YEAR(A2)+1,MONTH(A2),DAY(A2)) adds one year. Avoid simply adding 30 or 365 for month or year calculations because month lengths vary.
Subtract the number of days directly: =A2-30 returns the date 30 days before A2. The same logic applies — dates are stored as numbers so subtraction moves backward in time. To find the number of days between two dates, subtract the earlier from the later: =B2-A2.