Can you subtract dates in excel

We also provide improved formulas that will account for possible missing dates and keep your worksheets looking professional. Are you looking instead to subtract two dates or find out the best way to calculate age in Excel? For all date and time tutorials, see our Date and Time Tutorial Center.

The formulas to calculate the difference between another date and today's date are easy, and we show examples for several scenarios below. Upon subtraction, we get a fraction.

The total difference between both times is 24 hours, 30 minutes, 25 seconds. Excel will first compute the difference in terms of days, and return 1 day i. This leaves out the 30 minutes and 25 seconds, which still need to be factored into the output. Since our time is mentioned down to the seconds, we will compute 30 minutes and 25 seconds in terms of total seconds, like so:.

The total seconds, therefore, are seconds. To compute the fraction, we will divide seconds by 86, seconds i. The fraction that we get, as a result, will naturally be in terms of days and can be directly added to the 1 day we computed earlier.

Well, we want our final output in hours, right? If our current output is in terms of days, multiplying it by 24 will convert it to hours. Now, you could get away with just the bare-bones formula nested inside the INT function, and you will still receive pretty much the same output without adding the text string at the end.

As I said, the INT function removes decimals so the return 24 hours looks more pleasant to the eye. Not a lot of difference here, naturally. The only difference will be that instead of 24, you will multiply in the formula, and replace the text string with the word "minutes" like so:.

The formula works the same way as discussed in the previous example. The only difference is instead of multiplying the bracket with 24, we multiply it with i. The only difference, again, will be that we will multiply inside the formula, and use the text string "seconds" like so:. Again, the formula works the same way.

This time around, we multiply the bracket with i. Now, let's take it one more step further and try to fetch the difference between two dates in terms of days, hours, minutes, and seconds. To do this we can use the following formula —. The function does not round. So if the two dates had been 5 years and days apart, the answer would still be 5. This entry was posted on February 19, , am and is filed under All , General Tips.

You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2. Both comments and pings are currently closed. Maybe, you need to know the number of days between today and some date in the past or future?

Or, you just want to count working days between two dates? Whatever your problem is, one of the below examples will certainly provide a solution.

If you are looking for a quick answer, just supply the two dates in the corresponding cells, and our online calculator will show you how many days there are from date to date:. Curious to know the formula that has calculated your dates? Below you will find the detailed explanation on how this formula works and learn a few other methods to calculate days between dates in Excel.

The easiest way to calculate days between dates in Excel is by subtracting one date from another:. For example, to find out how many days are between dates in cells A2 and B2, you use this formula:. The result is an integer that represents no. As you probably know, Microsoft Excel stores dates as serial numbers starting on 1-Jan, which is represented by the number 1.