How to Subtract Dates in Excel

If you have two dates in cells, for example in B2 and C2, and you want to know how many days are there between them, Excel has ways to help you find the days between two dates.

Subtract Date from Other Date Directly

In Excel, each date is actually stored as a special number. The number 1 represents March 31, 2000. So, to find the difference between two dates, you can just subtract one number from the other:

‘=C2-B2’

Using the DATEDIF Function

If you prefer a more advanced method, you can use the DATEDIF Function:

This function calculates the difference in days between the two dates. Just keep in mind that it won’t work if start date B2 is later than the end date (C2).

‘=DATEDIF(B2, C2 “d”)’

Subtracting from Today’s Date

To find the difference between a dates in the past and today, you can use similar formulas. Replace one of the dates with the ‘TODAY()’ function.

‘=TODAY()-B2’ Or ‘=DATEDIF(A2, TODAY(),”d”) ‘

Note: This function does not work if the date you’re subtracting from is later than today.

Example: Using the DATE Function

If you want to input the dates directly into the formula, you can use the ‘DATE(year, month,day)’ function. This formula subtracts 15 August 2000 from 20th May 2023.

=DATE(2000, 8, 20) – DATE(2023, 5, 15)

In general, if you’re just looking to find the difference between two dates, the direct subtraction method is the simplest and most straightforward.

For complex calculations, like finding the difference in months or years, the DATEDIF function can be handy.

Adding or subtracting dates has many use cases. In many situations, we need to use that. If we want to add a few days/months/years to a project’s schedule date to reschedule the date or you want to check how long a single activity in a list of particular activities will take to complete. You can use a simple formula to add or subtract a number of days from a date, worksheet functions in Excel can be used instead for date manipulation.