How to use the Excel EDATE function

Summary

The Excel EDATE function returns a date on the same day of the month, n months in the past or future. You can use EDATE to calculate expiration dates, maturity dates, and other due dates. Use a positive value for months to get a date in the future, and a negative value for dates in the past.

Purpose

Shift date n months in future or past

Return value

New date as Excel serial number

Syntax

=EDATE (start_date, months)

Arguments

start_date - Start date as a valid Excel date.
months - Number of months before or after start_date.

Version

Excel 2003

Usage notes

The EDATE function can add or subtract months from a date. You can use EDATE to calculate expiration dates, contract dates, due dates, anniversary dates, retirement dates, and other dates in the future or past. Use a positive number for months to get a date in the future, and a negative number for dates in the past.

EDATE will return a serial number corresponding to a date. To display the result as date, apply a number format of your choice.

Basic usage

For example, if A1 contains the date February 1, 2018, you can use EDATE like this:

=EDATE(A1,1) // returns March 1, 2018
=EDATE(A1,3) // returns May 1, 2018
=EDATE(A1,-1) // returns January 1, 2018
=EDATE(A1,-2) // returns December 1, 2017

6 months from today

To use EDATE with today's date, you can use the TODAY function. For example, to create a date exactly 6 months from today, you can use:

=EDATE(TODAY(),6) // 6 months from today

Moving by years

To use the EDATE function to move by years, multiply by 12. For example, to move forward 24 months, you can use either of these formulas:

=EDATE(A1,24) // forward 2 years
=EDATE(A1,2*12) // forward 2 years

The second form is handy when you already have years in another cell and want to convert to months inside EDATE.

End of month

EDATE is clever about rolling "end of month" dates forwards or backwards, and will adjust year, month, and day values as necessary. For example EDATE will maintain the last day of month when a day is 31:

=EDATE("31-Jan-2019",1) // returns 28-Feb-2019
=EDATE("31-Jan-2019",2) // returns 31-Mar-2019
=EDATE("31-Jan-2019",3) // returns 30-Apr-2019
=EDATE("31-Jan-2019",4) // returns 31-May-2019
=EDATE("31-Jan-2019",5) // returns 30-Jun-2019

EDATE will also respect leap years:

=EDATE("31-Jan-2020",1) // returns 29-Feb-2020

However, EDATE will not maintain an end of month when the day value is less than 31. For example:

=EDATE("28-Feb-2019",1) // returns 28-Mar-2019

If you need end-of-month behavior, the EOMONTH function is a better option.

EDATE with time

The EDATE function will strip times from a dates that include time (sometimes called a "datetime"). To preserve the time in a date, you can use a formula like this:

=EDATE(A1,n)+MOD(A1,1)

Here, the MOD function is used to extract the time from the date in A1 and add it back to the result from EDATE.

See below for more examples of formulas that use the EDATE function.

Notes

EDATE will return the #VALUE error if the start date is not a valid date.
If the start date has a fractional time attached, it will be removed.
If the months argument contains a decimal value, it will be removed.
To calculate an end of month date, see the EOMONTH function.
EDATE returns a date serial number, which must be formatted as a date.

Related functions

Excel EOMONTH Function

The Excel EOMONTH function returns the last day of the month, n months in the past or future. You can use EDATE to calculate expiration dates, due dates, and other dates that need to land on the last day of a month. Use a positive value for...

Excel WORKDAY Function

The Excel WORKDAY function takes a date and returns the nearest working day in the future or past, based on an offset value you provide. You can use the WORKDAY function to calculate things like ship dates, delivery dates, and completion dates...