Subtract Business Days Calculator

About this calculator

This calculator counts backward from a start date by a given number of business days — weekdays only, skipping every Saturday and Sunday — to find the resulting date. Unlike simply subtracting calendar days, subtracting business days means the calculator has to step through each day, check whether it falls on a weekend, and only count the weekdays toward the total, which is why “10 business days before” a Friday lands more than two calendar weeks earlier.

This is how payroll systems compute pay periods, how courts and government agencies calculate legal notice or filing deadlines that are defined in business days rather than calendar days, and how contracts and SLAs back-calculate a required start date from a fixed deadline (for example, “shipping must begin no later than 5 business days before the delivery date”). Pick a start date and the number of business days to subtract, and the calculator returns the resulting business date.