How to Use Dates and Times in Google Sheets Formulas

Adam Steinfurth

Dates are notoriously finicky to use in spreadsheets. You can’t type them into a formula and expect it to work. However, there are a few different ways to use them in formulas. Once you know how, using dates is much easier.

Method 1 – Surround Dates and Times with Quotes

For the first example, dates and times can be typed directly into a formula if you use quotes. The quotes let Google Sheets know that 12/31/16 is a date instead of 12 divided by 31 divided by 16.

TickmarkFormulaResult
1=12/31/17-12/31/16-0.001423149905
2="12/31/17"-"12/31/16"365
3="December 31, 2017"-"December 31, 2016"365
4=4pm - 2am#ERROR!
5="4pm"-"2am".583333333
6=12/31/17 3pm-12/31/16 4pm#ERROR!
7="12/31/17 3pm"-"12/31/16 4pm"364.9583333
  • 1-Sheets doesn’t know these are dates, so it performs division for every forward slash.
  • 2-Using quotes allows you to subtract two dates, giving you the number of days elapsed.
  • 3-Using quotes allows you to subtract two dates when you spell them out correctly, and it returns the number of days elapsed between the two dates.
  • 4-Sheets can’t subtract these two times because they aren’t in quotes.
  • 5-Subtracting these two times works as expected because we wrapped them in quotes. These times will work with and without a space between the number and the am/pm.
  • 6-Sheets can’t subtract these two times because they aren’t in quotes.
  • 7-Subtracting these two times works as expected because we wrapped them in quotes. These times will work with and without a space between the number and the am/pm.

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Method 2 – Use Cell References

The second way to use dates or times in formulas is to enter them in separate cells and reference them with your formula instead of typing them directly into the formulas, as shown above.

 ABCD
1Start dateEnd dateFormulaResult
212/31/1612/31/17=B2-A2365
32/5/134/8/18=B3-A31888

Method 3 – Use Date or Time Functions

Dates have their own family of functions that allow you to work with them differently. Below are examples of a few of them. You can embed these functions inside other functions to create a formula.

FormulaPurpose
=DATE(2001,3,28)Converts three numbers into a valid date format.
=TIME(11,23,49)Converts three numbers into a valid time format.
=NOW()Returns the date and time right now. It constantly changes as time progresses.
=TODAY()Returns the date right now. It will change as time goes on.

Live Example in Sheets

Go to this spreadsheet for a live version of the above data so that you can study and use them anywhere you like.

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