EOMONTH is a function in Google Sheets that returns the ending day of a specified month. If you have many dates in your spreadsheet, this formula lets you quickly find the last day of the month in an automated fashion.
Once you have the last day of the month, see here if you want to show that date as a month name only.
Remember when using the EOMONTH function that dates behave differently than numbers; therefore, you cannot type the date directly into the formula. Because of this, you will need to use quotes, the DATE function, or a reference to a cell containing a valid date value.
Contents
Purpose
Returns the end date of a month a specified number of months away from a starting date.
Syntax
=EOMONTH(start_date, number_of_months)
start_date Any day in the month in the starting month of the calculation. For example, 1/3/2022 and 1/6/2022 would both give the same output.
number_of_months The number of months to go forward or backward
Tip: The value for the number of months will be truncated instead of rounded if you use a decimal. For example, the function will change 3.7 to 3 instead of 4.
Similar Functions
DATEDIF – Returns the number of days, months, or years between two days
EDATE – Adds or subtracts months from a date
MONTH – Returns a date’s month value as a number
TIMEDIF – Google Sheets Add-On
Calculate any duration in:
- Years
- Months
- Weeks
- Days
- Hours
- Minutes
- Seconds
- Milliseconds
Examples
Example 1 – Plain and Simple
Following are a few examples of the EOMONTH function. Notice that the values returned are at the end of each month. On the other hand, if you want to increment by month and stay on the same day of the month, consider using the EDATE function.
| Formula | Description | Result |
=EOMONTH("5/17/2017",13) | Returns the last day of the month 13 months after May 17, 2017 | 6/30/2018 |
=EOMONTH("5/17/2017",-13) | Returns the last day of the month 13 months before May 17, 2017 | 4/30/2016 |
The examples show EOMONTH increasing and decreasing the month.
Example 2 – Calculating Employment Benefit Start Dates
Benefits often start after employees are at a company for a specified number of calendar months. It does not matter when during a month the employees started, only how many whole months have elapsed. This table calculates the day after which the employees became eligible for benefits.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hire Date | Formula | Day after which eligibility starts |
| 2 | 1/13/2017 | =EOMONTH(A2,3) | |
| 3 | 1/30/2017 | =EOMONTH(A3,3) | |
| 4 | 12/21/2016 | =EOMONTH(A4,3) |
Even though the three employees started within days of each other, they have different eligibility dates.
Live Examples in Sheets
Go to this spreadsheet for examples of the EOMONTH function shown above that you can study and use anywhere you want.
Video Explanation
