Add or Subtract Days from the Date in Excel

If you have a date in some cell or a list of dates in a column, you can add or subtract a certain number of days to those dates using a corresponding arithmetic operation.

Example 1. Adding days to a date in Excel

The general formula to add a specified number of days to a date in as follows:

=Date + N days

The date can be entered in several ways:

As a cell reference, e.g. =A2 + 10

Using the DATE(year, month, day) function, e.g. =DATE(2015, 5, 6) + 10

As a result of another function. For example, to add a given number of days to the current date, use the TODAY() function: =TODAY()+10

Example 2. Subtracting days from a date in Excel

To subtract a given number of days from a certain date, you perform a usual arithmetic operation again. The only difference from the previous example is that you type the minus sign instead of plus sign.

=Date - N days

Here are a few formula examples:

=A2 - 10

=DATE(2015, 5, 6) - 10

=TODAY() - 10