Days Until a Date

Whole days, not 24-hour periods

There are two ways to count down, and they give different answers for most of the day.

• Calendar days — how many times midnight passes before the date arrives. This is what people mean, and what the page gives. It changes once a day and not otherwise.
• Elapsed time — hours and minutes remaining, which ticks continuously and shows a different number of "days" depending on whether you look in the morning or the evening.

A countdown that says "23 days" at breakfast and "22 days" at teatime is using the second method. This uses the first, so the number is stable and matches what you would get counting squares on a calendar.

The working days figure

Often the more useful number. Thirty days until a deadline is only about twenty-one working days, and fewer over a holiday period. If the countdown is for something that needs work done, that is the figure that matters.

Which day it falls on

Worth checking early. A deadline on a Saturday usually means Friday in practice, and an event on a Tuesday is a harder sell than the same event on a Friday. The card above shows the weekday.

Dates in the past work too

Enter a date that has been and the count shows how long ago it was. Useful for anniversaries, or for working out how long something has been running.

Common uses

• Counting down to an event — a holiday, a birthday, a wedding.
• Tracking a deadline, particularly in working days.
• Time until a contract ends or a renewal falls due.
• How long since something happened.

The working, step by step

Questions people ask

How are the days counted?

As whole calendar days — how many times midnight passes before the date. The number is stable through the day rather than ticking down by the hour.

Why does another countdown show a different number?

It is probably counting elapsed 24-hour periods, which gives a different answer depending on the time of day you look.

Can I count to a date in the past?

Yes. It shows how long ago it was.

Why does it show working days too?

Because for a deadline that is usually the number that matters. Thirty calendar days is only about twenty-one working days.

Worked out in the page

The arithmetic runs in your browser. No date you type is sent anywhere, which matters for the ones that are nobody else's business — a birth date, a due date, a notice period. There is no server here to receive them. The about page lists every request the site makes.