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Home » Calculate the Number of Months Between Two Dates in Excel (Easy
Formulas)
Calculate the Number of Months Between Two
Dates in Excel (Easy Formulas)
-- By Sumit Bansal
If you manage multiple projects, you would have a need to know how
many months have passed between two dates. Or, if you’re in the
planning phase, you may need to know the same for the start and end
date of a project.
There are multiple ways to calculate the number of months between
two dates (all using different formulas).
In this tutorial, I will give you some formulas that you can use to get the
number of months between two dates.
So let’s get started!
This Tutorial Covers:
1. Using DATEDIF Function (Get Number of Completed Months Between
Two Dates)
2. Using YEARFRAC Function (Get Total Months Between Two Dates)
3. Using the YEAR and MONTH Formula (Count All Months when the
Project was Active)
Using DATEDIF Function (Get Number of Completed
Months Between Two Dates)
It’s unlikely that you will get the dates that have a perfect number of
months. It’s more likely to be some number of months and some days
that are covered by the two dates.
For example, between 1 Jan 2020 and 15 March 2020, there are 2
months and 15 days.
If you only want to calculate the total number of months between two
dates, you can use the DATEDIF function.
Suppose you have a dataset as shown below where you only want to get
the total number of months (and not the days).
Below is the DATEDIF formula that will do that:
=DATEDIF(A2,B2,"M")
The above formula will give you only the total number of completed
months between two dates.
DATEDIF is one of the few undocumented functions in Excel. When
you type the =DATEDIF in a cell in Excel, you would not see any
IntelliSense or any guidance on what arguments it can take. So, if
you’re using DATEDIF in Excel, you need to know the syntax.
In case you want to get the total number of months as well as days
between two dates, you can use the below formula:
=DATEDIF(A2,B2,"M")&"M "&DATEDIF(A2,B2,"MD")&"D"
Note: DATEDIF function will exclude the start date when counting the
month numbers. For example, if you start a project on 01 Jan and it
ends on 31 Jan, the DATEDIF function will give the number of months as
0 (as it doesn’t count the start date and according to it only 30 days in
January have been covered)
Also read: Calculating Time In Excel
Using YEARFRAC Function (Get Total Months Between
Two Dates)
Another method to get the number of months between two specified
dates is by using the YEARFRAC function.
The YEARFRAC function will take a start date and end date as input
arguments and it will give you the number of years that have passed
during these two dates.
Unlike the DATEDIF function, the YEARFRAC function will give you the
values in decimal in case a year has not elapsed between the two dates.
For example, if my start date is 01 Jan 2020 and end date is 31 Jan
2o20, the result of the YEARFRAC function will be 0.833. Once you have
the year value, you can get the month value by multiplying this with 12.
Suppose you have the dataset as shown below and you want to get the
number of months between the start and end date.
Below is the formula that will do this:
=YEARFRAC(A2,B2)*12
This will give you the months in decimals.
In case you only want to get the number of complete months, you can
wrap the above formula in INT (as shown below):
=INT(YEARFRAC(A2,B2)*12)
Another major difference between the DATEDIF function and YEARFRAC
function is that the YEARFRAC function will consider the start date as a
part of the month. For example, if the start date is 01 Jan and end date
is 31 Jan, the result from the above formula would be 1
Below is a comparison of the results you get from DATEDIF and
YEARFRAC.
Using the YEAR and MONTH Formula (Count All Months
when the Project was Active)
If you want to know the total months that are covered between the
start and end date, then you can use this method.
Suppose you have the dataset as shown below:
Below is the formula that will give you the number of months between
the two dates:
=(YEAR(B2)-YEAR(A2))*12+MONTH(B2)-MONTH(A2)
This formula uses the YEAR function (which gives you the year number
using the date) and the MONTH function (which gives you the month
number using the date).
The above formula also completely ignores the month of the start date.
For example, if your project starts on 01 Jan and ends on 20 Feb, the
formula shown below will give you the result as 1, as it completely
ignores the start date month.
In case you want it to count the month of the start date as well, you
can use the below formula:
=(YEAR(B2)-YEAR(A2))*12+(MONTH(B2)-MONTH(A2)+1)
You may want to use the above formula when you want to know-how in
how many months was this project active (which means that it could
count the month even if the project was active for only 2 days in the
month).
So these are three different ways to calculate months between two
dates in Excel. The method you choose would be based on what you
intend to calculate (below is a quick summary):
Use the DATEDIF function method if you want to get the total
number of completed months in between two dates (it ignores
the start date)
Use the YEARFRAC method when you want to get the actual value
of months elapsed between tow dates. It also gives the result in
decimal (where the integer value represents the number of full
months and decimal part represents the number of days)
Use the YEAR and MONTH method when you want to know how
many months are covered in between two dates (even when the
duration between the start and the end date is only a few days)
Below is how each formula covered in this tutorial will count the
number of months between two dates:
Hope you found this Excel tutorial useful.
You may also like the following Excel tips and tutorials:
How to Calculate the Number of Days Between Two Dates in Excel
How to Remove Time from Date/Timestamp in Excel
Convert Time to Decimal Number in Excel (Hours, Minutes,
Seconds)
How to Quickly Insert Date and Timestamp in Excel
Convert Date to Text in Excel
How to SUM values between two dates in Excel
How to Add Months to Date in Excel
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