Explanation
The core of this formula is the DATE function, which will automatically adjust to month and year values that are out of range. In the formula, year is passed into date unchanged, along with 2 for month (February) and 29 for the day. In leap years, February has 29 days, so the DATE function will simply return the date February 29 of the year.
In non-leap years however, DATE will return the date March 1 of the year, because there is no 29th day in February, and DATE simply rolls the date forward to the next month.
Finally, the MONTH function simply extracts the month from the result provided by DATE, which is compared to 2 using the equal sign. If the month is 2, the formula returns TRUE. If not, the month must be 3 and the formula returns FALSE.
Test year only
To check a year only, instead of a full date, instead of a date, modify the formula as below:
=MONTH(DATE(year,2,29))=2
In this version, we don't extract a year value from a date, we pass a year value (i.e. 2020) directly to the DATE function.
A more literal solution
If the formula above seems too clever, and you want a more literal solution, the formula below will test if a year contains 366 days instead:
=DATE(YEAR(date)+1,1,1)-DATE(YEAR(date),1,1)=366
This formula generates two dates based on the date provided: (1) the first of the next year, and (2) the first of the current year. Then the first of the current year is subtracted from the first of the next year. In non-leap years, the result is 365 and the formula returns FALSE. In leap years, the result is 366 and the formula returns TRUE.
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.
