How to conditionally format dates and time in Excel with formulas and inbuilt rules

If you are a regular visitor of this blog, you've probably noticed a few articles covering different aspects of Excel conditional formatting. And now we will leverage this knowledge and create spreadsheets that differentiate between weekdays and weekends, highlight public holidays and display a coming deadline or delay. In other words, we are going to apply Excel conditional formatting to dates.

If you have some basic knowledge of Excel formulas, then you are most likely familiar with some of date and time functions such as NOW, TODAY, DATE, WEEKDAY, etc. In this tutorial, we are going to take this functionality a step further to conditionally format Excel dates in the way you want.

Excel conditional formatting for dates (built-in rules)

Microsoft Excel provides 10 options to format selected cells based on the current date.

  1. To apply the formatting, you simply go to the Home tab > Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cell Rules and select A Date Occurring.
    Excel conditional formatting built-in rules for dates
  2. Select one of the date options from the drop-down list in the left-hand part of the window, ranging from last month to next month.
  3. Finally, choose one of the pre-defined formats or set up your custom format by choosing different options on the Font, Border and Fill tabs. If the Excel standard palette does not suffice, you can always click the More colors… button.
    Choose one of the pre-defined formats or set up your custom format.
  4. Click OK and enjoy the result! : )
    Highlight cells in Excel with dates occurring in the last 7 days.

However, this fast and straightforward way has two significant limitations - 1) it works for selected cells only and 2) the conditional format is always applied based on the current date.

Excel conditional formatting formulas for dates

If you want to highlight cells or entire rows based on a date in another cell, or create rules for greater time intervals (i.e. more than a month from the current date), you will have to create your own conditional formatting rule based on a formula. Below you will find a few examples of my favorite Excel conditional formats for dates.

How to highlight weekends in Excel

Regrettably, Microsoft Excel does not have a built-in calendar similar to Outlook's. Well, let's see how you can create your own automated calendar with quite little effort.

When designing your Excel calendar, you can use the =DATE(year,month,date) function to display the days of the week. Simply enter the year and the month's number somewhere in your spreadsheet and reference those cells in the formula. Of course, you could type the numbers directly in the formula, but this is not a very efficient approach because you would have to adjust the formula for each month.

The screenshot below demonstrates the DATE function in action. I used the formula =DATE($B$2,$B$1,B$4) which is copied across row 5.
Use Excel DATE function to display the days of the week.

Tip. If you want to display only the days of the week like you see in the image above, select the cells with the formula (row 5 in our case), right-click and choose Format Cells…> Number > Custom. From the drop-down list under Type, select either dddd or ddd to show full day names or abbreviated names, respectively.

Your Excel calendar is almost done, and you only need to change the color of weekends. Naturally, you are not going to color the cells manually. We'll have Excel format the weekends automatically by creating a conditional formatting rule based on the WEEKDAY formula.

  1. You start by selecting your Excel calendar where you want to shade the weekends. In our case, it is the range $B$4:$AE$10. Be sure to start the selection with the 1st date column - Colum B in this example.
  2. On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting menu > New Rule.
  3. Create a new conditional formatting rule based on a formula as explained in the above linked guide.
  4. In the "Format values where this formula is true" box, enter the following WEEKDAY formula that will determine which cells are Saturdays and Sundays: =WEEKDAY(B$5,2)>5
  5. Click the Format… button and set up your custom format by switching between the Font, Border and Fill tabs and playing with different formatting options. When done, click the OK button to preview the rule.
    Excel conditional formatting rule with the WEEKDAY formula to highlight weekends.

Now, let me briefly explain the WEEKDAY(serial_number,[return_type]) formula so that you can quickly adjust it for your own spreadsheets.

  • The serial_number parameter represents the date you are trying to find. You enter a reference to your first cell with a date, B$5 in our case.
  • The [return_type] parameter determines the week type (square brackets imply it is optional). You enter 2 as the return type for a week starting from Monday (1) through Sunday (7). You can find the full list of available return types here.
  • Finally, you write >5 to highlight only Saturdays (6) and Sundays (7).

The screenshot below demonstrates the result in Excel 2013 - the weekends are highlighted in the reddish colour.
The weekends are highlighted in the reddish colour.

Tips:

  • If you have non-standard weekends in your company, e.g. Fridays and Saturdays, then you would need to tweak the formula so that it starts counting from Sunday (1) and highlight days 6 (Friday) and 7 (Saturday) - WEEKDAY(B$5,1)>5.
  • If you are creating a horizontal (landscape) calendar, use a relative column (without $) and absolute row (with $) in a cell reference because you should lock the reference of the row - in the above example it is row 5, so we entered B$5. But if you are designing a calendar in vertical orientation, you should do the opposite, i.e. use an absolute column and relative row, e.g. $B5 as you can see in the screenshot below:

Excel conditional formatting formula to highlight weekends in a vertical orientation calendar.

How to highlight holidays in Excel

To improve your Excel calendar further, you can shade public holidays as well. To do that, you will need to list the holidays you want to highlight in the same or some other spreadsheet.

For example, I've added the following holidays in column A ($A$14:$A$17). Of course, not all of them are real public holidays, but they will do for demonstration purposes : )
Add list of public holidays to a worksheet.

Again, you open Conditional Formatting > New Rule. In the case of holidays, you are going to use either MATCH or COUNTIF function:

  • =COUNTIF($A$14:$A$17,B$5)>0
  • =MATCH(B$5,$A$14:$A$17,0)

Note. If you have chosen a different color for holidays, you need to move the public holiday rule to the top of the rules list via Conditional Formatting > Manage Rules…

The following image shows the result in Excel 2013:
Conditional formatting formula to highlight holidays in Excel.

Conditionally format a cell when a value is changed to a date

It's not a big problem to conditionally format a cell when a date is added to that cell or any other cell in the same row as long as no other value type is allowed. In this case, you could simply use a formula to highlight non-blanks, as described in Excel conditional formulas for blanks and non-blanks. But what if those cells already have some values, e.g. text, and you want to change the background color when text is changed to a date?

The task may sound a bit intricate, but the solution is very simple.

  1. First off, you need to determine the format code of your date. Here are just a few examples:
    • D1: dd-mmm-yy or d-mmm-yy
    • D2: dd-mmm or d-mmm
    • D3: mmm-yy
    • D4: mm/dd/yy or m/d/yy or m/d/yy h:mm

    You can find the complete list of date codes in this article.

  2. Select a column where you want to change the color of cells or the entire table in case you want to highlight rows.
  3. And now create a conditional formatting rule using a formula similar to this one: =CELL("format",$A2)="D1". In the formula, A is the column with dates and D1 is the date format.

    If your table contains dates in 2 or more formats, then use the OR operator, e.g. =OR(cell("format", $A2)="D1", cell("format",$A2)="D2", cell("format", $A2)="D3")

    The screenshot below demonstrates the result of such conditional formatting rule for dates.
    A row is highlighted when text in column C is changed to a date.

How to highlight rows based on a certain date in a certain column

Suppose, you have a large Excel spreadsheet that contains two date columns (B and C). You want to highlight every row that has a certain date, say 13-May-14, in column C.

To apply Excel conditional formatting to a certain date, you need to find its numerical value first. As you probably know, Microsoft Excel stores dates as sequential serial numbers, starting from January 1, 1900. So, 1-Jan-1900 is stored as 1, 2-Jan-1900 is stored as 2… and 13-May-14 as 41772.

To find the date's number, right-click the cell, select Format Cells > Number and choose the General format. Write down the number you see and click Cancel because you do not really want to change the date's format.
Find the numerical value of a date.

That was actually the major part of the work and now you only need to create a conditional formatting rule for the entire table with this very simple formula: =$C2=41772. The formula implies that your table has headers and row 2 is your first row with data.

An alternative way is to use the DATEVALUE formula that converts the date to the number format is which it is stored, e.g. =$C2=DATEVALUE("5/13/2014")

Whichever formula you use, it will have the same effect:
Highlight every row based on a certain date in a certain column.

Conditionally format dates in Excel based on the current date

As you probably know Microsoft Excel provides the TODAY() functions for various calculations based on the current date. Here are just a few examples of how you can use it to conditionally format dates in Excel.

Example 1. Highlight dates equal to, greater than or less than today

To conditionally format cells or entire rows based on today's date, you use the TODAY function as follows:

Equal to today: =$B2=TODAY()

Greater than today: =$B2>TODAY()

Less than today: =$B2<TODAY()

The screenshot below demonstrates the above rules in action. Please note, at the moment of writing TODAY was 12-Jun-2014.
Excel formulas to highlight dates equal to, greater than or less than the current date.

Example 2. Conditionally format dates in Excel based on several conditions

In a similar fashion, you can use the TODAY function in combination with other Excel functions to handle more complex scenarios. For example, you may want your Excel conditional formatting date formula to color the Invoice column when the Delivery Date is equal to or greater than today BUT you want the formatting to disappear when you enter the invoice number.

For this task, you would need an additional column with the following formula (where E is your Delivery column and F the Invoice column):

=IF(E2>=TODAY(),IF(F2="", 1, 0), 0)

If the delivery date is greater than or equal to the current date and there is no number in the Invoice column, the formula returns 1, otherwise it's 0.

After that you create a simple conditional formatting rule for the Invoice column with the formula =$G2=1 where G is your additional column. Of course, you will be able to hide this column later.
Excel conditional formatting rule to highlight blank cells in the Invoice column when the Delivery Date is equal to or greater than today.

Example 3. Highlight upcoming dates and delays

Suppose you have a project schedule in Excel that lists tasks, their start dates and durations. What you want is to have the end date for each task calculated automatically. An additional challenge is that the formula should also consider the weekends. For example, if the starting date is 13-Jun-2014 and the number of days of work (Duration) is 2, the ending date should come as 17-Jun-2014, because 14-Jun and 15-Jun are Saturday and Sunday.

To do this, we will use the WORKDAY.INTL(start_date,days,[weekend],[holidays]) function, more precisely =WORKDAY.INTL(B2,C2,1).
The WORKDAY.INTL formula calculates the End Date for each task taking into account the weekends.

In the formula, we enter 1 as the 3rd parameter since it indicates Saturday and Sunday as holidays. You can use another value if your weekends are different, say, Fri and Sat. The full list of the weekend values is available here. Optionally, you can also use the 4th parameter [holidays], which is a set of dates (range of cells) that should be excluded from the working day calendar.

And finally, you may want to highlight rows depending on how far away the deadline is. For example, the conditional formatting rules based on the following 2 formulas highlight upcoming and recent end dates, respectively:

  • =AND($D2-TODAY()>=0,$D2-TODAY()<=7) - highlight all rows where the End Date (column D) is within the next 7 days. This formula is really handy when it comes to tracking upcoming expiration dates or payments.
  • =AND(TODAY()-$D2>=0,TODAY()-$D2<=7) - highlight all rows where the End Date (column D) is within the last 7 days. You can use this formula to track the latest overdue payments and other delays.

Excel conditional formatting rules to highlight upcoming dates and delays

Here are a few more formula examples that can be applied to the table above:

=$D2<TODAY() - highlights all passed dates (i.e. dates less than the current date). Can be used to format expired subscriptions, overdue payments etc.

=$D2>TODAY() - highlights all future dates (i.e. dates greater than the current date). You can use it to highlight upcoming events.

Of course, there can be infinite variations of the above formulas, depending on your particular task. For instance:

=$D2-TODAY()>=6 - highlights dates that occur in 6 or more days.

=$D2=TODAY()-14 - highlights dates occurring exactly 2 weeks ago.

How to highlight dates within a date range

If you have a long list of dates in your worksheet, you may also want to highlight the cells or rows that fall within a certain date range, i.e. highlight all dates that are between two given dates.

You can fulfil this task using the TODAY() function again. You will just have to construct a little bit more elaborate formulas as demonstrated in the examples below.

Formulas to highlight past dates

  • More than 30 days ago: =TODAY()-$A2>30
  • From 30 to 15 days ago, inclusive: =AND(TODAY()-$A2>=15, TODAY()-$A2<=30)
  • Less than 15 days ago: =AND(TODAY()-$A2>=1, TODAY()-$A2<15)

The current date and any future dates are not colored.
Formulas to highlight past dates in a certain date range

Formulas to highlight future dates

  • Will occur in more than 30 days from now: =$A2-TODAY()>30
  • In 30 to 15 days, inclusive: =AND($A2-TODAY()>=15, $A2-TODAY()<=30)
  • In less than 15 days: =AND($A2-TODAY()>=1, $A2-TODAY()<15)

The current date and any past dates are not colored.
Formulas to highlight future dates in a given date range

How to shade gaps and time intervals

In this last example, we are going to utilize yet another Excel date function - DATEDIF(start_date, end_date, interval). This function calculates the difference between two dates based on the specified interval. It differs from all other functions we've discussed in this tutorial in the way that it lets you ignore months or years and calculate the difference only between days or months, whichever you choose.

Don't see how this could work for you? Think about it in another way… Suppose you have a list of birthdays of your family members and friends. Would you like to know how many days there are until their next birthday? Moreover, how many days exactly are left until your wedding anniversary and other events you wouldn't want to miss? Easily!

The formula you need is this (where A is your Date column):

=DATEDIF(TODAY(), DATE((YEAR(TODAY())+1), MONTH($A2), DAY($A2)), "yd")

The "yd" interval type at the end of the formula is used to ignore years and calculate the difference between the days only. For the full list of available interval types, look here.

Tip. If you happen to forget or misplace that complex formula, you can use this simple one instead: =365-DATEDIF($A2,TODAY(),"yd"). It produces exactly the same results, just remember to replace 365 with 366 in leap years : )

And now let's create an Excel conditional formatting rule to shade different gaps in different colors. In this case, it makes more sense to utilize Excel Color Scales rather than create a separate rule for each period.

The screenshot below demonstrates the result in Excel - a gradient 3-color scale with tints from green to red through yellow.
The 3-color scale shades cells in different colors based on how many days are left until the event.

"Days Until Next Birthday" Excel Web App

We have created this Excel Web App to show you the above formula in action. Just enter your events in 1st column and change the corresponding dates in the 2nd column to experiment with the result.

If you are curious to know how to create such interactive Excel spreadsheets, check out this article on how to make web-based Excel spreadsheets.

Hopefully, at least one of the Excel conditional formats for dates discussed in this article has proven useful to you. If you are looking for a solution to some different task, you are most welcome to post a comment. Thank you for reading!

Table of contents

1237 comments

  1. Thank you for taking the time to put this together. It is helpful for highlighting holidays. However, if a holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday my agency observes the holiday on the Friday prior, or Monday after. Is there a way to have excel highlight the Friday prior to a Saturday holiday, or the Monday after a Sunday holiday?

  2. Hello --

    Not sure if I'm following the right thread. But I'm in Google Sheet and I have the same exact problem.
    I wanna highlight cells that match another set of cells.

    For example : cell E4:O4 contains time - and below them are E8:M399 with time as well. And I want to highlight the time in cell E8:M399 to match E4:O4..

    I'm using =match(E8,indirect("SCHEDULE & COVERAGE!E4:O4"),0) applied to range E8:M399

    It actually works to all cells except if the time from E8 starts with 12am or 0:00
    It works if the time 12am or 0:00 is in the middle for example J8..

  3. Hi,

    How do I highlight a course date that is due to be renewed. Let say, I attended a course on the 1/11/2022. And the course has to be renewed after 3 years which is 1/11/2025. What can I do to highlight the course date if the actual date is 3 months before the renewal date i.e > 1/8/2025? Thank you

  4. Hi,
    I have a Gantt chart issue and I’m wondering if you could help?

    I have a Task Start Date Column (C), End Date Column (D), and Progress % (E). If the Task Progress (Cell E1) is still 0% after the task start date (Cell C1), is it possible to highlight the start date (Cell C1)?

    I hope that makes sense.

    Thanks

  5. Hi,

    How do I highlight the cells that are within the 9 hour shift per 1 hr interval. I already have the count which decreases when an employee ended the shift.

    Example: there are 5 employees logged in by 3pm. And within 3pm, it consist of the shift from 6am to 2pm. I would like to check if it is possible to highlight those 5 employees.

    • Hello --

      Not sure if I'm following the right thread. But I'm in Google Sheet and I have the same exact problem.
      I wanna highlight cells that match another set of cells.

      For example : cell E4:O4 contains time - and below them are E8:M399 with time as well. And I want to highlight the time in cell E8:M399 to match E4:O4..

      I'm using =match(E8,indirect("SCHEDULE & COVERAGE!E4:O4"),0) applied to range E8:M399

      It actually works to all cells except if the time from E8 starts with 12am or 0:00
      It works if the time 12am or 0:00 is in the middle for example J8..

  6. I am needing to compare due dates and completion dates. I am specifically trying to have it automatically generate a green for on time and red for overdue. This is so that I may be able to easily notice trends within specific departments. I am having difficulty with dates that are the same as the due dates and with not having to format each entry. I would appreciate any and all assistance. Thank you.

  7. I need a condition like previous month of 9th to current date is this possible in excel and every time previous month will be changed like this is october then the previous moth is september if the month is december then need to extract data from november 9th to current date

  8. Hi - I may be in the wrong place for this question, so apologise if I am.
    I am pasting a number of dates from a genealogy programme into an Excel worksheet. Some of the dates are day/month/year, some are month/year and some are just year. How do I format the column so they appear as they should do?
    If I format for day month year, then the "year only" dates are miss-interpreted, eg 1924 becomes 07/04/1905
    If I format for number, 01/07/1916 becomes 6027.
    Is there a conditional format solution to this?
    Thanks
    Jeremy

    • Hello!
      1924 is a number, not a date. To get the date, you can use these recommendations: How to convert number to date in Excel. To convert a year number to a date, use the DATE function. For example,

      =DATE(A1,1,1)

      If you have a lot of different values that need to be converted to date, try Text to Date tool. It is available as a part of our Ultimate Suite for Excel that you can install in a trial mode and check how it works for free.

      • Alexander thanks - I understand what you are saying but I can't find a simple way of formatting the column to display a consistent date when the input data is in 3 different formats (as described). I'll have a play and eg see if I can display all dates as simply a year eg 1950. I believe I may be able to do this by format/number/custom/ then type in yyyy?
        Jeremy

  9. Hi Alexander,
    In my column G I want all contract dates, expiring in less than 6 months highlighted in conditional formatting. I already found some codes but I'm receiving a "There's a problem with this formula." error. Maybe is it because I'm working on a macbook?

    Can you please help me? Thanks

  10. Hi!
    How can I format the cells containing hour info to indicate it started or ended according to the current time.
    Example;

    NOW() : 10:30
    START END
    event 1 11.11.2022 08:40 09:30 start and end should be coloured
    event 2 11.11.2022 08:40 11:30 start should be coloured
    event 3 11.11.2022 10:40 12:30
    event 4 11.11.2022 14:40 16:30

    • Hi!
      You can find the examples and detailed instructions in article above.
      The NOW() function returns the date and time. To use time only, apply the formula

      NOW()-INT(NOW())

      Use conditional formatting rule:

      (A1-INT(A1))<(NOW()-INT(NOW()))

      I hope this will help.

  11. I have used conditional formatting on a spreadsheet. In it I have it set to figure the number of days since a unit has been cleaned and color code it to let me know how close it is to needing to be re-cleaned. My problem is that in the units that are rented, I did not populate the date of cleaning so it has no date to judge by and has put in a date of 6/28/1900. I am sure this is set up in the system but I want to find out how to set the cell up so when the date is left off it does not calculate anything and leaves the date blank. The formula I have used is: =(D+180) D is the ce3ll where I input where each unit was last cleaned. I want the cell to populate only if there is something in the D column.

  12. How can i entire row fill with color by conditional format when put in there random date in excel?
    Plz give some clue & more easier if you send some snapshot..?

  13. If we have a start date with timing and end date with timing how to highlight colors very close to end time.

  14. Hello sir,
    I'm preparing sheet name issued material list and i want to apply condition formatting on this sheet
    ex. i issued one shoes or helmet on current date n the reissued time is 6month
    i want to apply condition on current date
    the color will be change when it expire . can u plz help me

  15. Hi Alex,
    Great post!
    I would like to alternate colors of date range based on fiscal year from June to July (following year).

    Many thanks in advance.

  16. Hi all,
    How do I change the colour of a value based on how the number of that value in the column?

    Eg if date 01/01/22 appears in a column 5 times it will turn orange. But when that date appears 8 times it will turn red.

    Thanks

  17. Hello,
    I have created a spreadsheet and applied conditional formatting to my date column to highlight all future dates using the example above '=$B2>Today()'. For some reason it isn't picking up all of them.

    In one instance, when I sort by date it will highlight all future dates with the exception of the last row. That row will highlight if I add a future date to the row directly under it but the new future date will not be highlighted.

    If I resort by job number (different column) some of the previously highlighted dates are now not highlighted.

    I've confirmed the date column is all formatted correctly. I'm using Office 365 if you think that might be causing the problem.

    Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

    • Hello!
      The row number in the conditional formatting formula must match the number of the first row of the conditional formatting range. For example, for the range B1:B100 or B:B, you need to use the formula

      =$B1 > Today()

      Your formula "=$B2 > Today()" will work for a range, for example, B2:B100.
      I hope I answered your question. If something is still unclear, please feel free to ask.

  18. We have dates in column D. We would like to add a condition when it is 1 week past the date it changes colour, then again when 2 weeks past date to a different colour and again when its past 3 weeks. What formula would use per week?

    Thanks,

    Kasey

    • Hi!
      Please re-check the article above since it covers your task. Pay attention to the following paragraph: Conditionally format dates based on the current date.

  19. Hi,

    So I have a task list, and I want to use conditional formatting for two things. Number one, I want to highlight a cell that has been left blank in a range past a due date to complete the task. I have that due date represented in a cell in the same sheet, in case I need to make reference to that date in the conditional formatting formula. Additionally, I want to also highlight cells that reflect a date past that same due date, within the same range.
    I am having the hardest time, because all of the formulas I find use a moving date, usually in relation to today, or weekends, or holidays. I believe what I need should be much simpler than those. Help!

    • Ok ok... I solved the the second part of my question with a pre-made, greater than formula. Still... the first formula I still don't know how to do it.

      As a reminder, I need the cells in a column to light up if the date on a cell that I will be updating every month has passed, and the cells in that column are blank, indicating the task has either not been completed, or the employee has not recorded their task. Please help.

    • Hi!
      Have you tried the ways described in this blog post? Pay attention to the following paragraph of the article above - Conditionally format dates in Excel based on the current date. If they don’t work for you, then please describe your task in detail, I’ll try to suggest a solution.

  20. i have put this formula in my excel conditional formation but it show me date of one day before Sunday. =WEEKDAY($B3,2)>6
    please can you help me out.

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