How to Subtract Dates in Microsoft Excel 2003

Subtract dates in Excel to find the number of days between two dates.

Microsoft Excel provides many ways to format dates in your spreadsheet, and several formats include the names of months and not just numbers. Regardless of how dates appear, Excel has the ability to perform calculations on dates because it stores them as serial numbers beginning with Jan. 1, 1990. This means that any calculations normally done with serial numbers can also be done with dates, a useful feature when you need to know the difference between two dates in a spreadsheet.

Instructions

1. Start Microsoft Excel 2003 and open the workbook containing the dates you would like to subtract.

2. Click an empty cell where you would like the results to appear.

3. Identify the cells containing the start date (for example, A2) and end date (for example, B2). Type without quotes: "=B2-A2" and substitute your actual cell references for the examples used here. Press Enter.

Tips & Warnings

• If the formula is not working correctly, ensure that worksheet cells containing dates are formatted as "Date" so that Excel calculates the days between dates correctly. With the cells selected, go to "Format" and then "Cells." On the "Number" tab of the "Format Cells" dialog box, check that the category is "Date." Any type of "Date" format can be used.

• If the formula returns a date instead of an integer, Excel may have automatically formatted the cell as "Date." On the "Number" tab of the "Format Cells" dialog box, change the category to "General" or "Number" format to display the number of days correctly.

References

• Microsoft Office: Networkdays
• Microsoft Office: Calculate the Difference between Two Dates
• Microsoft Office: Display numbers as dates or times

Resources

• Microsoft Office: Convert Dates Stored as Text to Dates