Excel Formula: Count Days from Today
This tutorial provides the best formula to calculate the difference between a date and today in Excel.
If you want to follow along with this tutorial, please download the example spreadsheet.
Generic formula:
ABS(IF(ISBLANK(date),"",TODAY()-date)) |
Syntaxt and Arguments
Date: the date that is used to count the number of days from today. |
Return Value
The formula returns a numeric value.
Remark
Whether the given date is a past date or future date, it returns a positive value.
How this formula works
To count the days between today and the specific date in cell B3, please use below formula:
=ABS(IF(ISBLANK(B3),"",TODAY()-B3)) |
Press Enter key to get the result.
Then drag auto fill handle over other cells to apply this formula as you need.
Explanation
TODAY function: returns the current date.
ISBLANK function: returns TRUE if the cell is empty, or return FALSE if the cell is not empty.
IF function: performs a simple logical test depending on the comparison result, and it returns one value if a result is TRUE, or the other value if the result is FALSE.
Here the formula IF(ISBLANK(B3),"",TODAY()-B3)
If ISBLANK(B3) returns TRUE, then the IF formula returns empty, if ISBLANK(B3) returns FALSE, then the IF formula returns TODAY()-B3.
ABS function: returns absolute value of a number.
Note:
1. If you want to return future days as positive value, past days as negative value, use the formula as
=IF(ISBLANK(B3),"",B3-TODAY())
2. If you want to return future days as negative value, past days as positive value, use the formula as
=IF(ISBLANK(B3),"",TODAY()-B3)
Relative Formulas
- Count Weekdays only Between Two Dates
This tutorial provides formulas to count the days excluding weekends and holidays between two dates - Count Specific Weekday Between Two Dates
This tutorial provides the formula to count a specific weekday between two given dates in Excel. - Count Days Between Two Dates
Here provide formulas to count days, weeks, months or years between two dates. - Convert Weekday in A Date Range
If there is a list of dates, how can you count a certain day of week in such a list of dates?
Relative Functions
- Excel WEEKNUM Function
Returns the week number of the given date in a year - Excel WORKDAY Function
Adds workdays to the given start date and returns a workday - Excel MONTH Function
The MONTH is used to get the month as integer number (1 to 12) from date - Excel DAY Function
DAY function gets the day as a number (1 to 31) from a date - Excel NOW Function
Get the current time and date
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