Business Days Calculator
Count UK working days between two dates, or add business days to a date — with bank holidays for your part of the UK.
From Monday, 1 December 2025 to Friday, 2 January 2026 there are 21 working days in England & Wales — 32 calendar days less 8 weekend days and 3 bank holidays.
Breakdown
- Calendar days
- 32
- Weekend days
- 8
- Weekdays
- 24
- Bank holidays
- 3
Show your working
The same span in each nation
| Bank holiday calendar | Working days | Holidays in span |
|---|---|---|
| England & Wales | 21 | 3 |
| Scotland | 20 | 4 |
| Northern Ireland | 21 | 3 |
The UK has three bank holiday calendars, so the same dates can give different answers.
What the span is made of
Bank holidays already falling at a weekend are counted once, as weekend days.
Assumptions
- A working week of Monday to Friday, unless weekends are included above.
- Bank holidays are for England & Wales; the three UK calendars differ.
- Substitute days are applied when a fixed-date holiday falls at a weekend.
- One-off holidays proclaimed for a specific occasion, such as a state funeral, are not included.
Working day facts
- How many working days are in a UK year?
- Roughly 252 to 253 in England and Wales — 365 days less 104 weekend days and 8 bank holidays, depending on how the holidays fall.
- How many bank holidays does each nation get?
- England and Wales 8, Scotland 9, Northern Ireland 10. Scotland swaps Easter Monday for 2 January and St Andrew's Day; Northern Ireland adds St Patrick's Day and the Battle of the Boyne.
- What happens if a bank holiday is on a weekend?
- A substitute day is given on the next free weekday. When Christmas falls on a Saturday and Boxing Day on a Sunday, the days off move to the Monday and Tuesday.
- Why does Scotland's August holiday differ?
- Scotland takes the first Monday in August; England, Wales and Northern Ireland take the last. It is the one holiday where the whole month shifts.
Understanding working days
Where it matters
Contracts, notice periods, court deadlines and payment terms are usually written in working days, not calendar days. "Within 10 working days" over Christmas can be three weeks of real time.
Counting by hand is where mistakes creep in, because it is easy to forget a substitute day that moved off its usual date.
Four nations, three calendars
The UK does not have one bank holiday calendar. Scotland has 2 January and St Andrew's Day but no Easter Monday. Northern Ireland has St Patrick's Day and the Battle of the Boyne.
If a deadline spans organisations in different nations, the working days each side counts may not match — which is why this tool asks which calendar applies.
Counting forwards and back
Adding business days is not the same as adding calendar days and skipping the weekend at the end. Each skipped day pushes the count further, so ten business days from a Friday lands two weeks later, not ten days.
Counting backwards works the same way, which is useful for "what is the latest I can start" questions.
Common mistakes and limits
Bank holidays are not statutory holiday entitlement, and not every employer closes. Many in retail, hospitality and healthcare work them.
One-off holidays proclaimed for a specific occasion — a state funeral or a coronation — are announced rather than scheduled, so they cannot be derived and are not included here.
Related calculations
For plain calendar days rather than working days, the date calculator counts the gap between two dates, and the day counter counts down to one. To check which day a deadline lands on, use the day of the week calculator.
Worked example
From Monday 1 December 2025 to Friday 2 January 2026 is 33 calendar days. Ten of those are weekend days, leaving 23 weekdays.
Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day all fall on weekdays in that span, so three more come off: 20 working days in England and Wales. In Scotland, 2 January is a holiday too, so the same span gives 19.
Evidence & Methodology
How This Page Is Grounded
Method
Counts each date in the span, excluding Saturdays and Sundays and any bank holiday for the chosen UK nation. Bank holidays are derived rather than listed: Easter is computed with the anonymous Gregorian algorithm, positional holidays from the nth weekday of their month, and substitute days by moving a weekend holiday to the next free weekday.
Important limitation: Covers the three statutory UK bank holiday calendars. One-off holidays proclaimed for a specific occasion, such as a state funeral or coronation, are announced rather than scheduled and cannot be derived. Bank holidays are not the same as statutory holiday entitlement and many employers trade on them.
Primary Sources
- UK bank holidays GOV.UK
Quality Checks
Derived dates checked against the published calendar for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, including Easter across five years and consecutive Christmas and New Year substitute days.
See how sources are selected and corrections are handled in our Editorial & Calculation Methodology, and which automated checks this page has to pass in How We Test.
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