Sometimes, you may need to calculate the number of years and months between two dates in Excel. For example, you may want to know how long a project has lasted, how old a person is, or how much time is left until a deadline. In this article, we will show you how to use Excel formulas to perform this calculation. We will also explain the basic theory behind the formulas and provide a detailed example with real data.
To calculate the number of years and months between two dates, we need to use two Excel functions: DATEDIF and TEXT. The DATEDIF function returns the difference between two dates in various units, such as years, months, or days. The TEXT function converts a value to text in a specified format, such as “yyyy” for year or “mm” for month.
The syntax of the DATEDIF function is:
=DATEDIF(start_date, end_date, unit)
where start_date and end_date are the two dates you want to compare, and unit is the unit of time you want to return. The unit can be one of the following:
- “Y” for years
- “M” for months
- “D” for days
- “MD” for days excluding years and months
- “YM” for months excluding years and days
- “YD” for days excluding years
The syntax of the TEXT function is:
=TEXT(value, format_text)
where value is the value you want to convert to text, and format_text is the text format you want to apply. The format_text can be any valid Excel date or time format, such as “yyyy” for year or “mm” for month.
Procedures
To calculate the number of years and months between two dates in Excel, follow these steps:
- Enter the two dates you want to compare in two cells, such as A2 and B2.
- In another cell, such as C2, enter the formula
=DATEDIF(A2,B2,"Y")&" years and "&DATEDIF(A2,B2,"YM")&" months". This formula will return the number of years and months between the two dates in A2 and B2, separated by the text “years and months”. - If you want to format the result as text, you can wrap the formula with the
TEXTfunction, such as=TEXT(DATEDIF(A2,B2,"Y")&" years and "&DATEDIF(A2,B2,"YM")&" months","0"). This will remove any leading zeros from the result. - Copy the formula to other cells if you have more dates to compare.
Example
Let’s say you want to calculate the number of years and months between the start and end dates of some projects. You have the following data in Excel:
| Project | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|
| A | 1/1/2020 | 3/31/2021 |
| B | 4/1/2020 | 6/30/2021 |
| C | 7/1/2020 | 9/30/2021 |
| D | 10/1/2020 | 12/31/2021 |
To calculate the number of years and months between the start and end dates of each project, you can use the formula =DATEDIF(A2,B2,"Y")&" years and "&DATEDIF(A2,B2,"YM")&" months" in cell C2 and copy it down to C5. The result will look like this:
| Project | Start Date | End Date | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 1/1/2020 | 3/31/2021 | 1 year and 3 months |
| B | 4/1/2020 | 6/30/2021 | 1 year and 3 months |
| C | 7/1/2020 | 9/30/2021 | 1 year and 3 months |
| D | 10/1/2020 | 12/31/2021 | 1 year and 3 months |
Other Approaches
There are other ways to calculate the number of years and months between two dates in Excel, such as using the YEARFRAC function or the EDATE function. Here are some examples of how to use these functions:
=YEARFRAC(A2,B2)*12will return the number of months between two dates as a decimal number, such as 15.25 for project A.=INT(YEARFRAC(A2,B2))&" years and "&ROUND(MOD(YEARFRAC(A2,B2),1)*12,0)&" months"will return the number of years and months between two dates as text, similar to theDATEDIFformula, but with rounding.=EDATE(A2,12)-B2will return the number of days left until one year after the start date, such as 275 for project A.
