The YEAR function is a simple date function that extracts just the year from a time value. If you are working with times, but only care about the years, the YEAR function lets you get rid of everything else. Remember that dates are really just saved as numbers by your spreadsheet with date formatting applied.
Purpose
The YEAR function returns the value of the year from any given unit of time.
Video Explanation
Syntax
=YEAR(time)
Examples
Example 1 – Plain and Simple
A few simple examples of the YEAR function.
Formula
Description
Result
=YEAR("1/2016")
Extract the year value from 1/2016.
2016
=YEAR("1/31/2016")
Extract the year value from 1/31/2016.
2016
=YEAR("2016")
Extract the year value from 2016
1905
Tip: Notice that the YEAR function can’t figure out that the number 2016, when typed alone in a cell, refers to a year. See how dates and times work to make a little sense out of this.
Example 2 - Separating the values of a date and time.
Different date values examined using various functions.
8 A blank cell is December 30, 1899. Similar to tickmark 5.
9 Typing a 1 increments the value in number 8 above by 1 day. In other words "1=12/31/1899". It is just a matter of how it is displayed which can be controlled by going to the Format menu and choosing Number.
10 Just a decimal with no whole number increments the value by hours, minutes and seconds instead of days.
11 To get near the present date, you need to start with 43,000 days away from 12/30/1899.
Live examples in Sheets
Go to this spreadsheet for the examples of the YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, MINUTE, and SECOND functions shown above that you can study and use anywhere you would like.