How to Count Business Days (Excluding Weekends and Holidays)

A business day is any day that is not a weekend day or a public holiday. To count them, list the calendar days in your range, then remove weekends and holidays. With a Saturday–Sunday weekend and no holidays, 10 business days from today (October 6) is Tuesday, October 20, 2026. Our 10 business days from today page keeps that date current.

The basic method

1. Decide where you start. “Within 10 business days” normally starts counting on the next business day, not the day the request was made.
2. Count whole weeks first. Every full week holds exactly 5 business days. So 20 business days is 4 weeks, and 23 is 4 weeks and 3 days.
3. Step through the leftover days one at a time, skipping weekend days.
4. Remove public holidays that fall on a weekday in the range, and push the end date forward by one business day for each.

Worked example

How many business days are there from Monday 2 March 2026 to Friday 27 March 2026, counting from the day after the start? The span is 25 calendar days, which covers 3 full weeks plus 4 more days. That is 15 + 4 = 19 business days with a Saturday–Sunday weekend.

Now suppose a public holiday falls on a weekday in that range. In Pakistan, Pakistan Day on 23 March fell on a Monday in 2026, so the count drops to 18. A holiday that lands on a Saturday or Sunday makes no difference, unless your employer gives a substitute day off.

Not everyone has the same weekend

A business day count depends on which days are the weekend where the work is done:

• Saturday and Sunday: Pakistan’s government offices and banks, India’s government and most offices, the UK, the US, Europe and most of the world.
• Friday and Saturday: Saudi Arabia and several other Gulf countries. The UAE used Friday–Saturday until it switched to a Saturday–Sunday weekend at the start of 2022.
• Sunday only: many shops, factories and private firms in Pakistan and India work six days a week, so Saturday is a working day for them.

If you deal with a company abroad, count using their weekend and their public holidays. A courier promising delivery in 5 business days from Dubai and one promising the same from Karachi may mean different dates.

Business days from today

The table below counts from today, Tuesday, October 6, 2026, starting tomorrow. It ignores public holidays, so push the date later by one working day for each holiday in the range.

Notice that 20 business days is 28 calendar days with a two-day weekend, and 30 business days is 42. When the count is a multiple of 5 and you start on a normal working day, both weekend patterns often land on the same date, because each block of 5 business days is exactly one week. A handy rule of thumb is to multiply business days by 1.4 to estimate calendar days.

Where business days matter

• Bank transfers and cheque clearing, which only move on banking days.
• Delivery estimates, which couriers almost always give in business days.
• Contract and legal deadlines, such as replying to a notice within a set number of working days.
• Leave planning, where a week off uses 5 days of leave, not 7.

Always check whether a deadline says calendar days or business days. “30 days” in a contract usually means calendar days unless it says otherwise.

Let a tool do it

The date duration calculator shows both calendar days and weekdays between any two dates. Before counting, check our list of Pakistan public holidays or the wider holiday calendar. In a spreadsheet, NETWORKDAYS and WORKDAY do the job; see our guide to Excel date formulas.

Frequently asked questions