How the two modes work
In add mode you enter a start date and a number of business days; the calculator steps forward one calendar day at a time, skipping any weekend or excluded holiday, until it has counted the requested number of working days, and returns the resulting date. In count mode you enter two dates and it tallies the working days between them. A dropdown lets you either exclude US federal holidays or count weekends only, so the same tool fits both US and generic scheduling.
Which holidays are built in
The calculator includes the observed dates of all eleven US federal holidays for 2026 and 2027 — New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. It uses observed dates, so when a holiday falls on a weekend the federal day off (the adjacent Friday or Monday) is the one skipped. Outside the 2026–2027 window only weekends are removed, because holiday dates shift each year.
Why observed dates matter
Deadlines in contracts, courts, and shipping usually run on business days, and a holiday landing mid-week can push a due date back a full day. Because the tool lists every holiday it skipped, you can see precisely why a deadline moved — useful when explaining a delivery date to a client or confirming a filing deadline. It counts weekends separately too, so you can audit the whole span.
A worked example
Start on 12 July 2026 and add 10 business days. The tool skips two weekends and lands on 24 July 2026, reporting 12 calendar days elapsed, 2 weekend days skipped, and no holidays in that window. Now add 10 business days from 20 November 2026 and Thanksgiving (26 November) is skipped, so the due date lands one day later than the weekends alone would suggest — and the result names Thanksgiving as the reason.
Tips and limitations
Choose "weekends only" if your organization observes a different holiday set, then subtract your own holidays manually. Remember that some businesses also close the day after Thanksgiving or on Christmas Eve, which are not federal holidays and are not removed here. For international schedules, use weekends-only mode and account for local public holidays separately.