Excel Formula to calculate difference between two dates

Here is a simple tutorial to calculate the difference between two dates in Excel sheet. Count days before a date in excel using the simple formulas shown in this article. Some people want to calculate the days for the next birthday so continue reading this article.

If you had missed our earlier excel tutorials, please check the following

1. What is the Keyboard Shortcut to Merge Cells in MS Excel?
2. Complete List of Microsoft Excel Shortcut Keys
3. How to Enable or Disable Cell Drag and Drop Editing Option in Ms Excel?
4. How to Show Indian Currency Format in Excel?

What is TODAY Function ?

Using Today function in excel returns the serial number of the current date. The serial number is the date-time code used by Excel for date and time calculations. If the cell format was General before the function was entered, Excel changes the cell format to Date.

The TODAY function is useful when you need to have the current date displayed on a worksheet, regardless of when you open the workbook. It is also useful for calculating intervals.

=Date-Today()

In order to calculate the days before a certain date, all you need to do is subtract future date and later date. This can be achieved using TODAY() Function.

Calculate difference between Future date and Today’s date

=B5-Today()

Now let’s see a simple formula to calculate the difference between future date and today’s date using TODAY Function. Here the cell B5 is future date and subtracting B5-Today’s date give the date difference in the cell D5.

Calculate difference between two dates without TODAY Function

=B6-C6

Calculating difference between two dates without using TODAY function is easy one. All you need to do is using the above formula to substrate the date present in 2 different cells.

Text Note to add along with Date Difference

="For your next birthday "& B7-C7 &" days left"

To calculate the number of days until your birthday in Excel, execute the formula shown above. Using the above concatenate formula you can use the text note along with date difference in excel sheet.

If you have any other formulas please share it in comment section.