WEEKDAY
Return which day of the week a date falls on, as a number.
Syntax
WEEKDAY(serial_number, [return_type])| Argument | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
serial_number | Required | The date to test. |
return_type | Optional | 1 (default) counts Sunday as 1. 2 counts Monday as 1. |
Examples
Every example below was executed against VisiGrid engine 0.31.0 — not
transcribed from another vendor's documentation. Reproduce any of them with vgrid calc.
| Formula | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|
=WEEKDAY(DATE(2024,3,15)) | 6 | A Friday, with Sunday as day 1. |
=WEEKDAY(DATE(2024,3,15),2) | 5 | The same Friday, with Monday as day 1. |
=WEEKDAY(DATE(2024,3,17)) | 1 | Sunday, under the default numbering. |
=NETWORKDAYS(DATE(2024,3,11),DATE(2024,3,15)) | 5 | A full Monday-to-Friday week of business days. |
Always pass the second argument
The default counts Sunday as 1, which surprises most of the world and half
of the people who wrote the spreadsheet you inherited. Type 2 counts Monday as
1, which is what almost every business calendar means:
=WEEKDAY(A1, 2) > 5 → TRUE at weekendsWith the default that test is wrong twice a week. Passing the type explicitly
costs three characters and removes the ambiguity from anyone reading the formula
later — the same argument as FALSE on VLOOKUP.
Counting working days
For counting business days, NETWORKDAYS does it directly:
=NETWORKDAYS(DATE(2024,3,11), DATE(2024,3,15)) → 5and WORKDAY goes the other way, giving the date a number of working days
ahead. WEEKDAY is still the tool when you need the day itself rather than a
count — labelling rows, or flagging weekend transactions with
WEEKDAY(A1,2)>5.
Excel compatibility
Matches Excel for return types 1 and 2.