How to determine if date has passed in Excel?

For example, you want to compare a list of given dates with current date, and determine if date has passed in that list. This article shows you methods of determining if date has passed in Excel.

Determine if dates has passed with formula
Determine if dates has passed with Conditional Formatting
Easily determine if dates has passed with Kutools for Excel

Determine if dates has passed with formula

Supposing the current date is 2015/5/25, with the following formula, you can determine if date has passed compared with today’s date. Please do as follows.

1. Select a blank cell which is adjacent to the date you want to determine if it is overdue. Enter the below formula into it, and then press the Enter key.

=IF(ISBLANK(A2),"",IF(A2<TODAY(),"Overdue","Not due"))

2. Drag the Fill Handle to the range with the dates you want to determine if overdue. See screenshot:

Notes:

• 1. You will get two results: Overdue and Not due. If that’s an overdue date compared to today’s date, the cell will be populated with Overdue. On the contrary, it will be populated with Not due.
• 2. In the formula, ISBLANK means that when there is a blank cell in selected range, the result will be blank.

Determine if dates has passed with Conditional Formatting

With the Conditional Formatting function, you can highlight all dates which are overdue compared to today’s date.

1. Select the date list, and click Conditional Formatting > New Rule under Home tab. See screenshot:

2. In the New Formatting Rule dialog box, you need to:

• A. In the Select a Rule Type section, select Format only cells that contain.
• B. Select Cell Value in the first Format only cells with drop-down list.
• C. Select less than in the second Format only cells with drop-down list.
• D. In the third Format only cells with drop-down list, enter =TODAY().
• E. Click the Format button. See screenshot:

3. In the Format Cells dialog box, specify a background color for highlighting the overdue dates, and then click the OK button.

4. When it returns to the New Formatting Rule dialog box, click OK.

Then all passed dates compared to current date are highlighted with specified fill color immediately.

Note: If there are blank cells within the date list, they will be highlighted as well.

Determine if dates has passed with Kutools for Excel

With the Select Specific Cells utility of Kutools for Excel, you can easily select all overdue dates in a column compared to today’s date.

1. Select the range with dates you want to compare with current date and select the overdue dates, then click Kutools > Select > Select Specific Cells. See screenshot:

2. In the Select Specific Cells dialog box, select Cell in the Selection type section, select Less than in the Specific type drop-down list, enter today’s date into the following box, and finally click the OK button.

3. Then a Select Specific Cells prompt box pops up to tell you how many cells will be selected, click the OK button, and the overdue date cells are selected immediately.

Related articles:

• How to determine if a date falls between two dates or weekend in Excel?
• How to determine if a number or value is in a range in Excel?
• How to determine/check if date is a weekend in Excel?