Last verified: June 2026 — bank holidays sourced from gov.uk/bank-holidays. England and Wales bank holidays used by default.
Calculate the number of working days between any two dates in the UK.Excludes weekends and England and Wales bank holidays. Enter your start and end dates below to get an instant result.
Bank holidays are for England and Wales only. The calculator currently includes confirmed England and Wales bank holidays for 2026, 2027 and 2028. Scotland and Northern Ireland have different bank holiday dates. See our UK Bank Holidays 2026 guide for Scotland dates, or our Northern Ireland Bank Holidays 2026 page for Northern Ireland dates.
Worked example
Say you’re working out a notice period from 3 March to 17 April 2026. That’s 45 calendar days. But if you only count working days — excluding weekends and the Good Friday and Easter Monday bank holidays that fall in that window — it comes to 30 working days. That’s the kind of gap that trips people up when a contract says “30 days” without specifying which kind.
What counts as a working day in the UK?
A working day in the UK is any day that is not a Saturday, Sunday or a public bank holiday. For most employees this means Monday to Friday excluding bank holidays, giving a typical year of around 252 working days. Some contracts or industries define working days differently — always check your contract if you need a precise legal interpretation.
Common questions
Does this use UK bank holidays for all of the UK, or just England and Wales?
England and Wales bank holidays by default — Scotland and Northern Ireland have some different dates, so working day counts will vary slightly if you’re in either.
Why would a business quote “working days” instead of just days?
It protects them from weekends and holidays extending a deadline unexpectedly — common in delivery estimates, notice periods, and contract terms.
What’s the difference between this and the days-between-dates calculator?
This one strips out weekends and bank holidays automatically; the days-between-dates tool gives you all the versions (calendar, working, weeks, months) side by side.
See also
See UK bank holidays 2026 for the full list of dates excluded from this calculator, check is today a bank holiday for an instant answer, or see UK bank holidays 2027 for next year’s dates. And Days between dates calculator