What is counted
Every Monday to Friday between your two dates, minus any US federal holiday observed in that span. The result names each holiday it removed, so you can check the count against your own office calendar rather than taking a number on trust.
The end date is included by default, because that is what people mean by "working days between 1 and 31 March". A toggle switches to the exclusive count, and both figures are shown.
Worked example — a quarter
From 1 October 2026 to 31 December 2026 there are 92 calendar days. Removing 26 weekend days leaves 66. Removing Columbus Day (12 October), Veterans Day (11 November), Thanksgiving (26 November) and Christmas Day (25 December) leaves 62 working days. If your team also takes the day after Thanksgiving, it is 61.
Worked example — the December trap
From Monday 14 December 2026 to Wednesday 6 January 2027 is 24 calendar days counting both ends, but only 16 working days — 15 if you do not count the start date — because the span contains six weekend days plus Christmas Day on Friday 25 December and New Year's Day on Friday 1 January. Roughly two-fifths of the elapsed time is not working time. This is the single most reliable source of missed year-end deadlines, and it is why a deadline quoted in calendar days over the holidays is not the deadline people plan against.
Whose holidays
Federal only. State holidays vary considerably — Patriots' Day closes Massachusetts and Maine, Cesar Chavez Day closes California state offices, and many states observe the day after Thanksgiving. Bank holidays and court holidays are different lists again. If your deadline is set by a court rule, that court publishes its own calendar and it is the one that governs.
Part-time and non-standard weeks
The count assumes a Monday-to-Friday week. If yours is different, count calendar days with the days between dates tool and scale, or count weeks with the weeks between dates tool and multiply by your own working days per week.
The three choices behind every number on this page
- Monday to Friday is the working week. Not configurable, because the measured audience for this page is US administrative and legal deadline counting. If your week is different, see the last section.
- Eleven US federal holidays, on their observed dates. A holiday falling on a Saturday is observed on the preceding Friday; one falling on a Sunday is observed on the following Monday. We remove the observed day, because that is the day the office is shut. This is why New Year's Day 2028, a Saturday, takes a working day out of December 2027.
- The end date is counted by default. "Working days between 1 and 31 March" ordinarily means both ends. The toggle switches to the exclusive count and both figures are always shown, because this is the choice that most often makes two calculators disagree by exactly one.
Worked example — a first quarter
From Friday 1 January 2027 to Wednesday 31 March 2027 is 90 calendar days counting both ends. Removing twenty-six weekend days leaves 64. Removing New Year's Day itself (Friday 1 January), Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Monday 18 January) and Presidents' Day (Monday 15 February) leaves 61 working days. Compare that with the fourth quarter of 2026 — 62 working days out of 92 calendar days — and the point becomes visible: quarters are not interchangeable units of work even when they are similar lengths of time. A team planning capacity on "about 63 days a quarter" will be short in any quarter carrying three holidays.
How much working time a year really contains
2026 has 250 working days, 2027 has 249 and 2028 has 250. There are 261 weekdays in 2026 and eleven observed federal holidays, all of which land on weekdays that year. 2027 carries twelve observed closures inside the calendar year, because Christmas Day 2027 falls on a Saturday and is observed on Friday 24 December, and New Year's Day 2028 falls on a Saturday and is observed on Friday 31 December 2027. Twelve closures against 261 weekdays is what leaves 249. 2026, with eleven, leaves 250.
Where other working-day counters disagree
- Weekday counters dressed up as business-day counters. The commonest error by a distance: a tool that removes Saturdays and Sundays and nothing else. It will report 92 minus 26 equals 66 for the fourth quarter of 2026, four days more than the true figure of 62.
- Actual versus observed holiday dates. Removing 4 July 2026 rather than the observed Friday 3 July removes a Saturday, which was never a working day.
- A different holiday list. Federal, bank, court, state and company holidays are five different lists. Ours is federal, and every removed day is named on the result so you can reconcile against your own calendar.
- Half-days and shutdowns. No calculator knows that your office closes at noon on Christmas Eve or shuts entirely between Christmas and New Year. That is a correction only you can apply.