=NETWORKDAYS(start_date; end_date; [hol_range])

Result: An integer business-day count for the inclusive specified date span. Zoho explicitly defines Saturday/Sunday weekends here. For alternate weekends use NETWORKDAYS.INTL. It does not document a zero-day or fractional-day mode for this function.

Create a sheet named BusinessCalendar. Enter the table into columns A:F, beginning at row 1. Values in B and C must be actual date cells; set the date format, or type =DATE(2026;10;5) rather than relying on CSV date detection. D and E are integers. The optional downloadable CSV contains the same source values but does not prove that Zoho Sheet recognized the dates on import.

Enter these fictional business-closure dates as real dates in H2:H5. They are teaching data, not an authoritative public-holiday list or a claim that every employer observes them.

When filling formulas down, lock the holiday range as $H$2:$H$5. Enter semicolon-separated formulas as published in Zoho’s web reference; another environment or regional setting may present a different separator. Expected dates below use YYYY-MM-DD to avoid formatting ambiguity. All expected values were calculated with an independent Python date-iteration model, not executed in Zoho Sheet.

1. Put Working days in I1; in I2 enter =NETWORKDAYS(B2;C2;$H$2:$H$5).
2. B2 is Monday October 5, 2026 and C2 Friday October 16, 2026. The interval has 12 days, of which 10 fall on Monday–Friday. H2 is Wednesday October 7 and H3 is Monday October 12, so there are 8 qualifying days.
3. Copy I2 through I9. The expected integer results are listed below. For a version without holiday exclusions, =NETWORKDAYS(B2;C2) is expected to return 10 for row 2.
4. If you obtain a date rather than a count, change the cell format from Date to Number. If a date cell was imported as text, replace it with a real date from DATE(year;month;day).

Expected results for all practice rows (independent model, NOT Zoho execution):

Advanced application: count only the business days after intake

Many service-level agreements begin counting on the next day. For row 2, use =NETWORKDAYS(B2+1;C2;$H$2:$H$5) to remove the intake day when B2 itself is a working day; the independently expected result is 7, rather than 8. The formula should not be generalized to every SLA: if the intake day is a weekend or holiday, subtracting a calendar day does not necessarily subtract a working day. Specify the contractual counting rule before deployment.

Advanced application: report a fixed completion ratio

With required business days in J2 set to 10, =NETWORKDAYS(B2;C2;$H$2:$H$5)/J2 is expected to return 0.8 (format the cell as 80%). This measures available working days in the interval, not actual task completion. For working-time hours rather than whole days, use a different time-aware method.

• Inclusive endpoints: Unlike subtracting two date serials, NETWORKDAYS may count both the first and last date. =NETWORKDAYS(DATE(2026;10;5);DATE(2026;10;5)) is independently expected to return 1; a Saturday-to-the-same-Saturday interval gives 0.
• Weekend overlap: H4 is Saturday October 17. In the conventional Saturday/Sunday model it was already excluded; it should not be deducted a second time in the independent count. Zoho’s precise duplicate-holiday coercion remains to be tested.
• Malformed dates: Use real typed date cells or DATE(...); unrecognized localized date text can yield errors or unintended results. Avoid ambiguous strings such as 10/11/26 where day/month parsing varies.
• Bad range references: #REF! may indicate missing/moved holiday cells, and #VALUE! can indicate an invalid argument type; these are among Zoho’s generic documented error descriptions, not native errors reproduced for this formula.
• Wrong formula spelling: #NAME! can indicate an unknown name or mistyped function. Verify the separator, parentheses and $H$2:$H$5 range.

• Microsoft Excel documents a comma-separated syntax for the corresponding function. Zoho’s linked web-help reference uses semicolons. Copying an Excel formula unchanged may therefore need argument-separator changes, depending on the Zoho environment and file mode. See the Microsoft references below for the cross-software comparison; do not infer that formulas are universally interchangeable.
• Zoho’s current help pages establish these functions for the current documentation scope. They do not give a first-supported version, a complete historical compatibility matrix, or a guarantee that every cloud, desktop-beta, mobile, or offline workflow works identically. The Zoho Sheet desktop beta announcement says the desktop apps initially provide a subset of web features.
• Google’s products may offer function names that look similar. This guide does not assert identical edge cases, weekend-string handling, or error codes in Google Sheets without a separate function-by-function native test.

• NETWORKDAYS.INTL — prepared or planned review guide, link pending verified publication.
• WORKDAY — prepared or planned review guide, link pending verified publication.
• DAYS — prepared or planned review guide, link pending verified publication.
• WEEKDAY — prepared or planned review guide, link pending verified publication.

These are editorial queue references, not confirmed live links. Publication staff should connect only URLs already published and verified.

• Zoho Sheet: NETWORKDAYS official function reference — directly checked 2026-10-11.
• Microsoft Excel: NETWORKDAYS reference — checked 2026-10-11 for differences, not evidence of Zoho behavior.
• Zoho Sheet desktop beta announcement — checked 2026-10-11 for product/platform scope; does not certify this individual formula in all desktop modes.

• Zoho Sheet — function documentation
• Zoho Sheet desktop beta announcement

Verification status: Official documentation checked; example outcomes were independently reasoned or arithmetically checked where applicable. Not executed in Zoho Sheet.

• No genuine Zoho Sheet screenshots are included; this guide does not use mock application images.