by If you are looking for an Excel function to get day of week from date, you've landed on the right page. This tutorial will teach you how to use the WEEKDAY formula in Excel to convert a date to a weekday name, filter, highlight and count weekends or workdays, and more.
There are a variety of functions to work with dates in Excel. The day of week function (WEEKDAY) is particularly useful for planning and scheduling, for example to determine the timeframe of a project and automatically remove weekends from the total. So, let's run through the examples one-at-a-time and see how they can help you cope with various date-related tasks in Excel.
WEEKDAY - Excel function for day of week
The Excel WEEKDAY function is used to return the day of the week from a given date.
The result is an integer, ranging from 1 (Sunday) to 7 (Saturday) by default. If your business logic requires a different enumeration, you can configure the formula to start counting with any other day of week.
The WEEKDAY function is available in all versions of Excel 365 through 2000.
The syntax of the WEEKDAY function is as follows:
Where:
Serial_number (required) - the date that you want to convert to the weekday number. It can be supplied as a serial number representing the date, as a text string in the format that Excel understands, as a reference to the cell containing the date, or by using the DATE function.
Return_type (optional) - determines what day of the week to use as the first day. If omitted, defaults to the Sun-Sat week.
Here is a list of all supported return_type values:
| Return_type | Number returned |
|---|---|
| 1 or omitted | From 1 (Sunday) to 7 (Saturday) |
| 2 | From 1 (Monday) to 7 (Sunday) |
| 3 | From 0 (Monday) to 6 (Sunday) |
| 11 | From 1 (Monday) to 7 (Sunday) |
| 12 | From 1 (Tuesday) to 7 (Monday) |
| 13 | From 1 (Wednesday) to 7 (Tuesday) |
| 14 | From 1 (Thursday) to 7 (Wednesday) |
| 15 | From 1 (Friday) to 7 (Thursday) |
| 16 | From 1 (Saturday) to 7 (Friday) |
| 17 | From 1 (Sunday) to 7 (Saturday) |
Note. The return_type values 11 through 17 were introduced in Excel 2010 and therefore they cannot be used in earlier versions.
Basic WEEKDAY formula in Excel
For starters, let's see how to use the WEEKDAY formula in its simplest form to get the day number from date.
For example, to get the weekday from date in C4 with the default Sunday - Saturday week, the formula is:
=WEEKDAY(C4)
If you have a serial number representing the date (e.g. brought by the DATEVALUE function), you can enter that number directly in the formula:
=WEEKDAY(45658)
Also, you can type the date as a text string enclosed in quotation marks directly in the formula. Just be sure to use the date format that Excel expects and can interpret:
=WEEKDAY("1/1/2025")
Or, supply the source date in a 100% reliable way using the DATE function:
=WEEKDAY(DATE(2025, 1,1))
To use the day mapping other than the default Sun-Sat, enter an appropriate number in the second argument. For example, to start counting days from Monday, the formula is:
=WEEKDAY(C4, 2)
In the image below, all the formulas return the day of the week corresponding to January 1, 2025, which is stored as the number 45658 internally in Excel. Depending on the value set in the second argument, the formulas output different results.
At first sight, it may seem that the numbers returned by the WEEKDAY function have very little practical sense. But let's look at it from a different angle and discuss some formulas that solve real-life tasks.
How to convert Excel date to weekday name
By design, the Excel WEEKDAY function returns the day of the week as a number. To turn the weekday number into the day name, employ the TEXT function.
To get full day names, use the "dddd" format code:
To return abbreviated day names, the format code is "ddd":
For example, to convert the date in A3 to the weekday name, the formula is:
=TEXT(WEEKDAY(A3), "dddd")
Or
=TEXT(WEEKDAY(A3), "ddd")
Please note that in this formula, you should use WEEKDAY with only one argument, serial_number. Do not include return_type, even if your week starts on a day other than Sunday.
Actually, the WEEKDAY function is unnecessary for this formula. The TEXT function alone would work nicely:
=TEXT(A3, "dddd")
Though, we often think of WEEKDAY as the day of week function, which might make this formula easier to remember.
Another possible solution is using WEEKDAY together with the CHOOSE function.
For example, to get an abbreviated weekday name from the date in A3, the formula goes as follows:
=CHOOSE(WEEKDAY(A3),"Sun","Mon","Tus","Wed","Thu","Fri","Sat")
Here, WEEKDAY returns a serial number from 1 (Sun) to 7 (Sat) and CHOOSE selects the corresponding value from the list. Since the date in A3 (Wednesday) corresponds to 4, CHOOSE outputs "Wed", which is the 4th value in the list.
Though the CHOOSE formula is slightly more cumbersome to configure, it provides more flexibility letting you output the day names in any format you want. In the above example, we show the abbreviated day names. Instead, you can deliver full names, custom abbreviations or even day names in a different language.
For more examples, see Excel formula to get day of week from date.
Excel WEEKDAY formula to find and filter workdays and weekends
When dealing with a long list of dates, you may want to know which ones are working days and which are weekends.
To identify weekends and weekdays in Excel, build an IF statement with the nested WEEKDAY function. For example:
=IF(WEEKDAY(A3, 2)<6, "Workday", "Weekend")
This formula goes to cell A3 and is copied down across as many cells as needed.
In the WEEKDAY formula, you set return_type to 2, which corresponds to the Mon-Sun week where Monday is day 1. So, if the weekday number is less than 6 (Monday through Friday), the formula returns "Workday", otherwise - "Weekend".
To filter weekends or workdays, apply Excel filter to your dataset (Data tab > Filter) and select either "Weekend" or "Workday".
In the screenshot below, we have weekdays filtered out, so only weekends are visible:
If some regional office of your organization works on a different schedule where the days of rest are other than Saturday and Sunday, you can easily adjust the WEEKDAY formula to your needs by specifying a different return_type.
For example, to treat Saturday and Monday as weekends, set return_type to 12, so you'll get the "Tuesday (1) to Monday (7)" week type:
=IF(WEEKDAY(A2, 12)<6, "Workday", "Weekend")
How to highlight weekends workdays and in Excel
To spot weekends and workdays in your worksheet at a glance, you can get them automatically shaded in different colors. For this, use the weekday/weekend formula discussed in the previous example with Excel conditional formatting. As the condition is implied, we only need the core WEEKDAY function without the IF wrapper.
To highlight weekends (Saturday and Sunday):
=WEEKDAY($A2, 2)<6
To highlight workdays (Monday - Friday):
=WEEKDAY($A2, 2)>5
Where A2 is the upper-left cell of the selected range.
To set up the conditional formatting rule, the steps are:
- Select the list of dates (A2:A15 in our case).
- On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Conditional formatting > New Rule.
- In the New Formatting Rule dialog box, select Use a formula to determine which cells to format.
- In the Format values where this formula is true box, enter the above-mentioned formula for weekends or weekdays.
- Click the Format button and select the desired format.
- Click OK twice to save the changes and close the dialog windows.
For the detailed information on each step, please see How to set up conditional formatting with formula.
The result looks pretty nice, doesn't it?
How to count weekdays and weekends in Excel
To get the number of weekdays or weekends in the list of dates, you can use the WEEKDAY function in combination with SUM. For example:
To count weekends, the formula in D3 is:
=SUM(--(WEEKDAY(A3:A20, 2)>5))
To count weekdays, the formula in D4 takes this form:
=SUM(--(WEEKDAY(A3:A20, 2)<6))
In Excel 365 and Excel 2021 that handle arrays natively, this works as a regular formula as shown in the screenshot below. In Excel 2019 and earlier, press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to make it an array formula.
How these formulas work:
The WEEKDAY function with return_type set to 2 returns a day number from 1 (Mon) to 7 (Sun) for each date in the range A3:A20. The logical expression checks if the returned numbers are greater than 5 (for weekends) or less than 6 (for weekdays). The result of this operation is an array of TRUE and FALSE values.
The double negation (--) coerces the logical values to 1's and 0's. And the SUM function adds them up. Given that 1 (TRUE) represents the days to be counted and 0 (FALSE) the days to be ignored, you get the desired result.
Tip. To calculate weekdays between two dates, use the NETWORKDAYS or NETWORKDAYS.INTL function.
If weekday then, if Saturday or Sunday then
Finally, let's discuss a bit more specific case that shows how to determine the day of the week, and if it's Saturday or Sunday then do something, if a weekday then do something else.
Suppose you are calculating payments for employees who have done some extra work on their days off, so you need to apply different payments rates for workdays and weekends. This can be done using the following IF statement:
- In the logical_test argument, nest the WEEKDAY function that checks whether a given day is a workday or weekend.
- In the value_if_true argument, multiply the number of working hours by the weekend rate (G4).
- In the value_if_false argument, multiply the number of working hours by the workday rate (G3).
The complete formula in D3 takes this form:
=IF(WEEKDAY(B3, 2)>5, C3*$G$4, C3*$G$3)
For the formula to copy correctly to the below cells, be sure to lock the rate cell addresses with the $ sign (like $G$4).
WEEKDAY function not working
Generally, there are two common errors that a WEEKDAY formula may return:
#VALUE! error occurs if either:
- Serial_number or return_type is non-numeric.
- Serial_number is out of supported dates range (1900 to 9999).
#NUM! error occurs when return_type is out of the permitted range (1-3 or 11-17).
This is how to use the WEEKDAY function in Excel to manipulate days of week. In the next article, we will explore Excel functions to operate on bigger time units such as weeks, months and years. Please stay tuned and thank you for reading!
Practice workbook for download
WEEKDAY formula in Excel - examples (.xlsx file)
284 comments
I have a timesheet which weekends are highlighted,I'd like the conditional formatting to highlight a day after, Monday, if holiday falls on a Sunday
Hope can get you help, thanks.
How to apply sum formula for week wise & week starts from monday & ends in sunday, is there any formula in excel which return the sum value week wise that to which automaticaly calculate the sum of Monday to Sunday in the perticular month.Please help in this.
Regards,
Gundu H Danolli
How can I get the 12 week prior Friday from the current date?
hi,
can you please help me.
how can i know which day it was 100 days ago.
is it correct: =today-100 ?
Hi Benjamininfo,
Yep. Just remember to add the parenthesis right after today:
=today()-100
thank you very much. :D
Hi
I am looking to add 39 calendar days from a date (i.e. incl. weekends).
But if the date falls on a Friday/ Saturday/ Sunday, i am looking to show the Thursday before.
Would anyone be able to help, please?
Thanks
Hi,
I am working for a project and for that project we need to calculate number of months between two dates in excel. For instance, I need to calculate the month between: 00-Jan-1964 and 00-Mar-1966. As you can see we don't have exact dates in them. Most of the excel functions that I found online work when I put exact dates in it. But we don't have any exact dates at our disposal. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Hi,
Please i need you to help me use my spreadsheet to automatically do remaining number of days or countdown between two dates. e.g 02/feb/2016 to 20/June/2016 and for everyday it will automatically update the remaining days to get to 20/June/2016.
Thanks
Hi,
Good day.
I want to know what formula I can use to count the number of a day in a month (ie. the number of Mondays in June2016 or the number of Tuesdays in July2016, etc.) or is there such a formula for this?
Thanks! :)
need to calculate total income for the week.. need to get the total of mon to sat of the week
=IF(A2=WEEKDAY("Monday"),"Meade","Sanchez") Would you tell me how to fix this formula? I want the cell to say "Meade" for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and "Sanchez" for the Tue, Thur, Sat,(1st and 3rd "Sun") and 2nd Sun And 4th Sun "Meat" Thank you.
=IF(A2=WEEKDAY("Monday"),"Meade","Sanchez") Would you tell me how to fix this formula? I want the cell to say "Meade" for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and "Sanchez" for the Tue, Thur, Sat,Sund (1st and 3rd) and 2nd Sun And 4th Sun "Meat" Thank you.
Great article, thank you! I'm working on a pretty simple spreadsheet, but I've run into an issue with returning the weekday in a column. The formula below works great if there is data in column A. Is there a way to leave the weekday column blank if no date is entered in column A?
=TEXT(A2, "ddd")
I need to make 2 drop downs. One with selection of week 1 to week 8 and I want to limit the date in other drop down. Example if I select week 2 in drop down then other drop down should give me only option of dates starting 6th June to 10th June.
Please tell me if that's possible.
Hi,
I am a Marketing Executive. We have monthly tour plan. So I am trying to make up a formula to check for the current month and as per that the routes will be added to the corresponding dates and Sunday's has to be left blank. Format is
Month Date Route
Can you suggest how to use the formula for this
I am creating a protected 60-day calendar. Cell E2 is unlocked for a date input. The calendar week starts on Monday, going through Sunday (A7-G7). The calendar grid is A8-G8 all the way down to A17-G17. I want to be able to input a date in E2, (ie:5/10/16) and for excel to know that 5/10/16 is a Tuesday, so it automatically inserts 5/10 in the cell B8. I can then formulate for the autofil of the rest of the dates all the way through the end of the 60 days.
I just cant remember how I set this up before, where excel knew which day (monday-sunday) to start the calendar by entering a date in E2...
IF DUE DAY IS SUNDAY. HOW CAN I FIND -1 DAY SATURDAY.
I am trying to create a dynamically updated calendar based on a given date propagating to a 6 months individual calendar grids. I am trying to find out how to auto insert the correct first day of the month under the correct day. Example my project starts Feb 20 so the first calendar grid would show February 1st as the Monday so the second cell from the left of the calendar since my week starts on Sunday.
Hi, Can some one help me to separate time bands as per below through excel formula for each day and date
Weekday 1800-0000 hrs = Prime time
Weekend 0600-0000 hrs = Prime time
Weekday 0000-1700 hrs = Non Prime time
Weekend 0000-0600 hrs = Non Prime time
Hi, Can some one help me to separate time bands as per below through excel formula for each day and date
Weekday 1800-0000 hrs = Prime time
Weekend 0600-0000 hrs = Prime time
Weekday 0000-1700 hrs = Non Prime time
Weekend 0000-0600 hrs = Non Prime time
Week Day Hour PT:NPT
Wednesday 0 NPT
Wednesday 1 NPT
Thursday 2 NPT
Friday 3 NPT
Saturday 4 NPT
Sunday 5 NPT
Monday 6 NPT
Tuesday 7 NPT
Wednesday 8 NPT
Thursday 9 NPT
Friday 10 NPT
Saturday 11 PT
Sunday 12 PT
Monday 13 NPT
Tuesday 14 NPT
Wednesday 15 NPT
Thursday 16 NPT
Friday 17 NPT
Saturday 18 PT
Sunday 19 PT
Monday 20 PT
Tuesday 21 PT
Wednesday 22 PT
Thursday 23 PT
Friday 24 PT
Saturday 25 PT
Thanks in advance
I have scenario such as if in a column contain date weekend or holiday we should get the previous working day.for example Date:04/30/2016 is a Saturday,so I should get the Friday's date (04/29/2016)if this results is a holiday then we should get Thursday's date( 04/28/2016).
Please help me on this!