Home Privacy Policy Feedback Link to us Site Map Forums

Excel: DateDiff Function (VBA only)

In Excel, the DateDiff function returns the difference between two date values, based on the interval specified. It can only be used in VBA code.

The syntax for the DateDiff function is:

DateDiff( interval, date1, date2, [firstdayofweek], [firstweekofyear] )

interval is the interval of time to use to calculate the difference between date1 and date2. Below is a list of valid interval values.

Interval Explanation
yyyy Year
q Quarter
m Month
y Day of year
d Day
w Weekday
ww Week
h Hour
n Minute
s Second

date1 and date2 are the two dates to calculate the difference between.

firstdayofweek is optional. It is a constant that specifies the first day of the week. If this parameter is omitted, Excel assumes that Sunday is the first day of the week.

firstweekofyear is optional. It is a constant that specifies the first week of the year. If this parameter is omitted, Excel assumes that the week containing Jan 1st is the first week of the year.


Applies To:

  • Excel 2007, Excel 2003, Excel XP, Excel 2000

For example:

The DateDiff function can only be used in VBA code as follows:

Function TestDates (pDate1 as Date, pDate2 as Date) as Long

     TestDates = DateDiff("d", pDate1, pDate2)

End Function


Based on the spreadsheet below, the function would return the following values:

=TestDates(A2, A1) would return 1.
=TestDates(A3, A2) would return 16.
=TestDates(A4, A3) would return 14.