Open the Format Cells dialog box and change the date format to a number format. When you enter this formula, Excel may display an odd-looking date. This formula tells Excel to subtract the date in cell B4 from today's date, which is Apin our example. Substitute your cell reference for cell B4. The open dates are all in the past, so we have a simple subtraction using the TODAY function of Excel.Įnter the formula in C4, =TODAY()-B4, in the first cell. In the example below, our help desk calculates how many days our incidents have been open. How long ago was a particular event? How many days has an invoice been open? There are many examples of wanting to know the number of days between today and a past date. Hint: Pre-format the cell that will hold your first formula in a number format. We show this problem and its solution in the last two sections. However, if missing dates are a possibility, your sheet will look unprofessional. The formulas to calculate the difference between another date and today's date are easy, and we show examples for several scenarios below.
Are you looking instead to subtract two dates or find out the best way to calculate age in Excel? For more date and time tutorials, see our Date and Time Tutorial Center.
