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DAYS

Category: MS Excel compatibility function · Native since: Excel 2013

Returns the number of days between two dates (end − start).

Syntax

=DAYS(end_date, start_date)

Arguments

Argument Required Description
end_date Required end date
start_date Required start date

Returns

Returns end_date minus start_date in days as a scalar number. The time-of-day part of each date is truncated. Returns #VALUE! if an argument is omitted.

Examples

Formula Result Description
=DAYS(DATE(2026,3,1),DATE(2026,1,15)) 45 Days between two dates
=DAYS(DATE(2026,1,1),DATE(2026,1,31)) -30 Negative when end is earlier

Notes

  • Date text such as "2026-01-15" is not parsed and returns #VALUE!; empty cells are treated as 0.
  • Both date arguments accept arrays and are computed element-wise, spilling an array of the same shape — scalars are broadcast, a column vector × a row vector expands to their outer product, size-mismatched elements yield #N/A, and an error element returns that error.
  • Supported: Excel 2010+. Registered as DAYS (drop-in) on hosts without the native function, and as EG.DAYS on modern Excel that has it.