Explanation
Working from the inside out, the YEAR, MONTH, and DAY functions extract those respective date components:
=YEAR(B5) // 1960
=MONTH(B5) // 3
=DAY(B5) // 8
At the outer level, the DATE function simply reassembles the component values back into a valid Excel date. To add years to the date, we just need to add the value in C5 to the year component prior to reassembly:
=DATE(YEAR(B5)+C5,MONTH(B5),DAY(B5))
The formula is then solved like this:
=DATE(1960+10,3,8)
=DATE(1970,3,8)
=8-Mar-1970
Note: if you need to add an "even" multiple of 12 months to a date (i.e. 12, 24, 36, 48, etc) you can use a much simpler formula based on the EDATE function. See: add months to a date.
Related formulas
Add months to date
Add days to date
Related functions
DATE Function
The Excel DATE function creates a valid date from individual year, month, and day components. The DATE function is useful for assembling dates that need to change dynamically based on other values in a worksheet.
YEAR Function
The Excel YEAR function returns the year component of a date as a 4-digit number. You can use the YEAR function to extract a year number from a date into a cell or to extract and feed a year value into another formula, like the DATE function.
MONTH Function
The Excel MONTH function extracts the month from a given date as number between 1 to 12. You can use the MONTH function to extract a month number from a date into a cell, or to feed a month number into another function like the DATE function.
DAY Function
The Excel DAY function returns the day of the month as a number between 1 to 31 from a given date. You can use the DAY function to extract a day number from a date into a cell. You can also use the DAY function to extract and feed a day value into another function, like the...
