DATEDIF

Date & timeExcel 2007

Whole years / months / days between two dates.

Syntax

DATEDIF(start_date, end_date, unit)

Arguments

start_date: The earlier date.
end_date: The later date.
unit: "Y" whole years, "M" whole months, "D" days, "MD" days ignoring months/years, "YM" months ignoring years, "YD" days ignoring years.

How it works

A legacy function kept for compatibility — it isn't in the function list and Excel gives no argument help, but it works.

Examples

=DATEDIF(A2, TODAY(), "Y")

→ age in whole years

=DATEDIF(A2, B2, "Y") & "y " & DATEDIF(A2, B2, "YM") & "m"

→ "3y 7m"

Good to know

The "MD" unit has known bugs at month boundaries — avoid it for anything precise.

Related functions

YEARFRAC DAYS EDATE

More Date & time functions

DATE DATESTRING DATEVALUE DAY DAYS DAYS360 EDATE EOMONTH HOUR ISOWEEKNUM MINUTE MONTH

← All 510 functions

Syntax follows Microsoft’s documentation. Examples are written to be pasted into a cell and checked. Argument separators may be ; in your locale. The AI explainer runs on a free community model — verify anything important.